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THE MOTHER. 

From a painting by Chat. L, Miller, 
































































































THE 


Wats of Women 

nr THEIR 


Physical, Moral 

AHD 


Intellectual Relations. 





J{ Y. C. "smith, M.D., 


/BY- 


Author of a Class Book of Anatomy f “ Notes to Cooper's Surgery'' “ A Treatise on thA 
Mechanism of the Eye," ^'‘Physical Signs of Longevity in Man," Travels in Turkey" ^ 
“ Palestine," and "Egypt," Six Volumes "Scientific Tracts." Sixteen years Editor 
“ Boston Medical and Surgical Journal;" Twenty-three years Port Physician 
cf the City of Boston; afterwards Professor of Anatomy in \Zih 
Street N. T. Medical College, and President and Professor of 
Descriptive and Surgical Anatomy, in N. Y. Medical College., 


"V 


OF COIVGl^^ 


ILLUSTRATEI 


^OF WASH ' 


HARTFORD, CONN.: 

DUSTIN, GILMAN & CO., PUBLISHERS, 

M. A. PARKER & CO., CHICAGO, ILL. 

1875 . 








Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
DUSTIN, GILMAN & CO., ' 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 





% 


/ 31? 

64 


PREFACE. 

y --- 


A leading object of this work is to explain in familiar 
language How women may improve their condition by 
conforming to the laws of health. Next, to point out the 
way, in this active age of Christian civilization, by which 
they may be qualified for sustaining themselves honorably 
and successfully in various new relations to society. The 
illustrations are not -embarrassed with technicalities, there¬ 
fore may be easily understood. 


J. V. C. SMITH. 


New York : 20 Ibving Place. 





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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 1. 

PAGB. 

<Women—Their Influence, Magnetism, Inborn Intuitions, and Power in 

every Age and Country... 11 


CHAPTER 11. 

'Generalizations—References in Construction to Specific Purposes—Rudi¬ 
mentary Organs—Constant Evidences of Design—Organic Life and 
* Multiform Objects of Interest in the Investigation of Laws Regulat¬ 
ing Existence. 17 


CHAPTER III. 

Laws of Adaptation—Reference to Lactation—Pelvic Carpentry — Ex¬ 
posures to Weather—Being too Delicate—Progress of Sentimen¬ 


tality. 34 

. CHAPTER IV. 

Social Status of Women. 26 


CHAPTER V. 

Exterior of the Sexes... 

CHAPTER VI. 


Imperfect Development of Women.'.... 41 

# 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Dress of Women. 54 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Exercise of Women.... G9 











6 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER IX. 

rAOB. 

Nervous System of Women—Different Nerves—Their Functions Ana¬ 
tomically alike in both Sexes—Old Age—Children Nursed by Men— 
Arrest of Pulmonary Consumption by Lactation—Too much Restraint 
—Exercise Essential. 83 


CHAPTER X. 

lAmusements of Women—Young Animals in Sports—Blind Buffaloes— 
Reptiles—Brain Volume—Mechanical Ingenuity—Conversation with 
Children—Theoretical Schemes of Female Education—Dancing— 
Entertaining Distinguished Guests—Theatres—Always have Existed 
—Labor—Childre^Over-worked—Philanthropic Efforts—Play-time 
a Sanitary Measure—Why Sleep is Necessary..100 

CHAPTER XL 

Tlieir Mode of Living—Pickles—Dentists Benefited — Mountaineers— 
Digestion—Sugar-eating—Character of Food—Food of Animals— 
Camels—Artificial Teeth—Must Vary Pursuits—Rural Diseases— 
Neuralgic Pains—Sallow Complexions.114 

CHAPTER XIL 

How they should Sleep—Sleep of Insects—Somnambulism—Glandular 
System—Repair—Transfer of Vitality—Marriage of Aged Persons 
-Females in Factories..... 133 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Food of Women—Dietetics of the World—Everything Eaten—Habits— 
Sugar a Necessity—Economy of the Liver—Pork—By whom Avoided 
—Starch—Experiment with Honey Bees—Law of Life Illustrated 
—Fruits for Children—Open-Air Exercise for Girls—A Benevolent 
Citizen of Boston—Fish Food.-... 155 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Internal Structure—Chest—Compression of Blood Vessels in Women— 
Healthy Children—Anger—Heart—Irritability—Origin of its Power 
—Sudden Death—Be Moderate—Dropsical Effusions.. 177 








CONTENTS. T 

FAGS. 

CHAPTER XV. 

Over-working the Heart.184 

♦ 

% 

CHAPTER XVL 

Their Lungs. 194 

CHAPTER XVIL 

Their Digestion.213 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Their Growth.232 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Their Eyes.240 

CHAPTER XX. 

Their Teeth. 255 

CHAPTER XXL ‘ . - • 

Their Hair — How Abused — Desquamations — DepiFation — Excessive 
Growth of—Baldness—Covering the Head—Luxuriant Hair—Hair 
Dyes—Objections to—Jltfects of Lead—Sulphur... 269 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Their Feet—How Injured—Origin of Corns and Bunions—Tight Shoes— 
Enlarged Joints—Rubber Shoes—High Heels—Remedies for Pedal 
Deformities.284 

CHAPTER XXIII. . 

Tlieir Physical Necessities.296 











8 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

CHAPTER XXIV, 

Minor Sources of Annoyance—Pride—Mutilations—Ligation of Limbs— 
Freckles—IJpidermis—Motb Patches — Nostrums — Grass Diet— 
Topical Applications—Red Noses—Astringents—Smelling-Bottles— 
Stimulants—Appearing to Advantage.303 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Their Peculiar Organization..*. 311 

CHAPTER XXVL 

Their Maladies—Pleasure and Pain—Wheat-Growing Regions—Change 
of Location—Town Residence—Transplantation of Humanity— 
Travelling for Health—Contest between Life and Death—Peritoneal 
Inflammation—Pleural Adhesions—Stays—Female Clothing—Un¬ 
covered Arms and Chest—Progress of Reflnement.314 

CHAPTER XXVIL 

Their Powers of Endurance—Wliat they can do—In Science—Being Mis¬ 
placed—In Offices—Out-Door Employment—Capacity—Iceberg Sym¬ 
pathy—Children of Indigent Parentage—Varying Temperatures— 
Development of Strength. 333 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Brain Force—Mental Differences—Genius—Molecules of Matter—Dupli¬ 
cation of Organs—All* Brains appear alike*-A Divine Mystery— 
Male and Female Brains—No Anatomical Difference. 343 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Over-working the Brain.348 

CHAPTER XXX. 

Their Complexion—Physical Bearing—Cosmetics — Eruptions—Pearl 
Powder—Water as a Purifier—Pores of the Skin—Insensible Per¬ 
spiration—Tint of—Antimony. 354 









CONTENTS. 


9 


PAGE. 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

Female Education.366 

CHAPTER XXXIL . 

Acquiring Languages—Capacity for Certain Pursuits—Waste of Life-^ 

A One-Tongued People—How to Proceed—Dogs learn tlie Meaning 
of Words—Carious Relation of Facts—Telegraphy.381 

• 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Women in Professions—Not G»od Public Speakers—A Reason—Pro¬ 
fessors in Colleges—Female Physicians a Success—Admirable Artists 
—Approved Teachers—Should be Encouraged and Sustained.403 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

Marriage. 413 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

Their Dangers in Marriage.431 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Divorces. 449 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

The Longevity of Women. 457 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 


Their Future in the United States 


473 










ILLUSTRATIONS 


Page. 

THE MOTHER, .. . Frontispiece. 

CONTRACTED CHEST, . . . *.56 

JAPANESE LADY AND LADIES OF THE HAREM, ... 66 

COUNTRY SPORTS, ' .112 

CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE, . . .136 

RAILROAD-CAR SCENE, . . .'.144 

WELL-DEVELOPED CHEST, . . ..178 

HEALTHFUL RECREATIONS, . . . . . . . .206 

GLASSES IN SOCIETY,. .242 

CONCAVE AND CONVEX GLASSES,.250 

FASHIONS* OF TO-DAY,.292 

FASHIONS ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO,.318 

WATER CARRIER—FISH CARRIERS —WOMEN OF THE 

VINEYARD,.340 

POVERTY AND RICHES, . . . ' . . . ' . . .376 

THE LOVERS,. 414 

WOMEN OF THE FIECD, .'. ,464 














The Wats of Women. 


CHAPTER L 

Their Influence, Magnetism, Inborn Intuitions, and Power in every Age and 

Country, 

Since the creation of Eve, women have been objects of 
peculiar interest wherever seen. They are conscious of possess¬ 
ing a controlling influence over men, whatever their social 
position, and they wield it according to circumstances. They 
assume a general attitude of defence, as though recognizing the 
fact of being physically weak, while exercising a mysterious 
strength^ which no man has the energy to resist. Whatever 
her condition, from a pampered lady of the court to a menial 
servant of the kitchen, every woman demonstrates in her inter¬ 
course wdth the world the truth of the foregoing proposition. 
Her attractions or exhibitions of contempt are acts of volition. 
Both may be exerted either for good or for evil, according to 
her own individual determination. 

There are peculiar inborn properties of the sex wdiich 
education modifies but cannot extinguish. Beauty, elegance 
of form, and grace of manners are powerful auxiliary forces 
when exercised for the accomplishment of ambitious designs. 
There is neither spirit nor persistency enough in the whole 
range of masculine humanity, with but a few rare exceptions, 



12 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


to withstand the artillery of a magnificent woman’s charms, 
when sent forth in all their potency with a view to conquest. 

Kings, princes, statesmen, theologians, and those of grave 
and solemn deportment, are alike impressible when subjected 
to those mysterious influences whiq^ are the glory and the 
shame of womanhood. Science sheds no light on this subject, 
since it has not yet been explained how female organization is 
endowed with such superior force. 

In the functions of organs essential to nutrition, and in the 
form and offices of the apparatus of the special senses, there is 
no apparent difference, and yet men and women differ in their 
natures. Neither one is a perfect being. They are complete 
halves. The two constitute one perfect whole. 


The Frame of Womah. 

There are about two hundred and forty-eight bones in a 
human skeleton. More are often found, but fewer than two 
hundred and thirty-nine could not be dispensed with, and the 
individual not be noticeable as organically defective. 

When extra bones appear, they are usually under the balls 
of the great toes. From their resemblance to sesamum seeds, 
they are called sesamoids. 

The production of those split-pea shaped bones may happen 
at any period of life about the articulations of the thumbs, 
fingers, or toes, to meet certain contingencies to which they 
may have been exposed. Their development under flexor 
tendons are purely a mechanical principle, to carry the cqrd 
farther from the joint to increase its power. In some cases the 
introduction of those extra bones is a temporary provision, and 
they are absorbed and taken away’ when no longer of service. 

The knee-pans are of the same character, being movable 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN, 


13 


fulcrums, rising and falling in the flexion or extension of the 
limb. By placing the palm of the hand over the knee-cap 
while bending the leg, the sliding motion of the patella, 
up and down, illustrates its ofiice in the economy of that joint. 

When extra burdens are imposed for a succession of weeks 
or months, requiring a firmer foothold in order to carry the 
weight steadily, the cordage of the feet will increase, both in 
volume and tone, to meet the emergency. Thus, a hod carrier, 
climbing ladders, will not only have enlarged feet, but sesa* 
moid bones make their appearance at points where the tendons 
have the greatest amount of strain upon them, about the under 
side of the toes. 


Laws to Meet Cases. 

Mature exercises a discretionary oversight, as it were, for 
the comfort of the individual as well as for the immediate pro¬ 
tection of a most exposed part, by introducing temporary assist- 
tance, and removing it when no longer necessary. 

Small ossific deposits sometimes appear about the finger 
joints, for the same beneficial purpose. Should they become 
inconveniently large, when the cause is removed which quick¬ 
ened them into existence, ordinarily they begin to diminish in 
size, unless the individual is at an advanced age, when vitality 
loses much of its former force. 

Equal Number of Bones in both Sexes. 

There are exactly as many bones in the female as in the male 
skeleton, but ’they are smaller and more delicate in texture, 
with slighter depressions and less prominent eminences upon 
them. A female skull is smaller, thinner, and bears upon its 
general exterior, peculiarities indicative of mental qualities, if 


14 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


there is any reliance upon phrenology, not to he neglected or 
overlooked in studying osteological architecture. 

One of the most obvious differences is a gentle arching of 
the female head from the forehead upward to the vertex, which 
is always more elevated than in male skulls. Scarcely one 
flat head, in that region, can be found in a thousand. On the 
contrary, the number of upwardly arched heads is small, in 
comparison, ajnong men. They are more commonly quite flat, 
or slightly raised between the sinciput and occiput. 

This characteristic difference is considered, by experts in 
sentimental craniology, as proof positive, that women always 
have jnore elevated moral sentiment, and are actually. better 
than men, because they possess a more favorable organization. 
l*^othing is more familiar than bones, and therefore, little or no 
thought is bestowed upon them. But, when carefully ex¬ 
amined, they are rich in lessons of instruction. They are 
levers for the attachment of muscles or movers, by the con¬ 
traction or'relaxation of which motions are effected. 

Every animal which is capable of making a motion possesses 
muscles. Most of them have skeletons clothed with flesh, 
and that is an aggregation of muscles. In the simpler forms 
of aquatic life, as in lobsters, crabs, etc., etc., the skeleton is on 
the outside. While it gives attachment to muscles, it also is a 
coat of mail, a house or a fortress in which they dwell, secure¬ 
ly defended from the assaults of enemies. 


Formation of Bones. 

At birth we have, no perfect bones, with the exception of 
the auditory, but they soon begin to harden as the infant 
is furnished with food. Then ossification commences,—a very 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 15 

i 

gradual process, not fairly completed till about the twentieth 
year. | 

The formation, therefore, of two hundred and forty-eight 
hard bones of different shapes, densities, and positions, out of 
food taken into the stomach, is a marvel. But that is not the 
whole of the wonder. When fashioned and apparently finish¬ 
ed, then they are taken to pieces, particle by particle, and carried 
out of the body, a new particle invariably being inserted 
when an old one is removed. i 

There is no cessation of this vital process ; it is perpetually 
'^oing on from the hour of birth to the expiration of the last 
breath. It is not unlike building a brick edifice. When com¬ 
pleted, were the masons to commence forthwith to remove a 
brick in the wall, and, at the same instant, introduce a new one 
in its place, and never relax in that repetition of exchanging new 
for old ones, till the structure was destroyed, it would represent 
the process always going on in a living being, 
j Our very bones are many times renewed, therefore, in the 
course of a medium lifetime, although their composition is a 
compound of phosphate of nfagnesia, phosphate and carbonate 
of lime, manganese, iron, silex, etc., in definite proportions, 
which no chemist could more accurately weigh in his scales. 


Male and Female Skeleton. 

Although constructed of exactly the same materials, in the 
same elementary proportions, having the same general forms, 
there is a difference in the skeletons which the anatomist 
detects very readily. 

I When suspended side by side, a characteristic difference 
becomes apparent. The pelvis is broader and deeper in .the 
female, which throws the hips further apart, giving to that 


16 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


central pivot of the frame a feature which artists, particularly 
sculptors, are careful to note, as it cants the knees so nearly 
together they almost touch. In the male subject the thigh 
hones are nearly parallel. 

Again, the necks of the femoral bones are longer in the 
female, throwing the shafts further from the sockets in which 
they are articulated. A vertical hne drawn perpendicularly to 
the space between the knees, from the chin, gives the most 
satisfactory demonstration of this very curious arrangement. 

The distance between the articulating heads of the thigh 
bones is so plainly recognized, as to enable those with a verjT 
limited acquaintance with osteology, to determine, with con¬ 
siderable accuracy, to which sex a skeleton belonged. 

This circumstance may be of considerable importance in con¬ 
ducting judicial inquiries. Public anxiety is sometimes pain¬ 
fully excited when human remains are found in obscure places, 
that lead to the suspicion of a concealed crime. If a man had 
mysteriously disappeared, and the discovered bones belonged to 
a female, it would be important in settling a mooted question. 


CHAPTER 11. 


Generalizations. 

References in Construction to Specific Purposes—Rudimentary Organs— 

Constant Evidences of Design—Organic Life and Multiform Objects of 

Interest in the Inyestigation of Laws Regulating Existence. 

From the beginning of woman’s existence, a reference is 
discoverable in her mind and body, in regard to the exact posi¬ 
tion she was predestined to occupy. As already , expressed, her 
bones, not in their composition, but in some of their directions 
rather than in their forms, indicate a reason for deviations from 
lines given to those of the male. They must have had the same 
condition in the first created woman, otherwise the architecture 
manifested in the pelvic construction would have been an 
imperfection. Eve would have left no posterity on the earth, 
had the carpentry of that region been different from what it 
now is in her feminine descendants. 

Small philosophers have dared to suggest that Adam was, in 
his own person, both male and feiriale. Rudimentary paps of 
men, monkies, dogs, swine, and many other quadrupeds, are 
cited as testifying to the truth of their theory, that they were 
originally hermaphrodites—^being in their present state, substan¬ 
tially, degenerated females. In the first chapter of Genesis, 
they find a declaration respecting the first man, which strength¬ 
ens their convictions. 

Woman, then, in the peculiarities of her bones, presents 
evidences of a design which could not have been so without a 
designer. She did not fashionTierself; and, therefore, in the 

commencement of our inquiries, are irrefragable proofs of 

2 


18 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


a Supreme Intelligence in every step of progress in these 
investigations. 

The sexes have been distinct from the beginning. 

It would be inappropriate to discuss the mental attributes of 
women in the commencement of these deliberations, or to insti¬ 
tute comparisons by weighing her brain in patent balances, 
measuring the length of her muscles, counting the hairs on her 
head, or drawing parallels between her attainments and those 
of giants in art, literature, and science. It is necessary to keep 
within prescribed boundaries in order to gain accurate know¬ 
ledge of her ways, by studying carefully what is already known, 
to find out what- may be unknown, that would enhance her 
claims for better treatment and justice at the hands of those 
who are her natural protectors and associates. 

By contraction, muscles bend the arm, raise a shoulder, 
grit the teeth, or carry a spoon to the mouth. There are no 
surprises excited by motions so common. Women w^alk, run, 
eat, drink, sleep, and recruit their exhausted vitality as men do. 
By analagous mechanism they perform on musical instruments ; 
think, speak, sing, and express their sensations. Therefore, 
their brain is the same in form . and texture, but smaller, and 
hence it has been hastily concluded they are unequal to enter¬ 
prises in which men excel.- Only those quite incompetent to 
comprehend the mission of women, or appreciate her many 
claims to distinction, arrive at that conclusion. 


What they Have Done. 

By hereditary right women have ascended thrones. History 
narrates thrilling military successes of women. In strategy, 
they excel w^hen they choose to exercise their ingenuity. 

They have risen to an enviable distinction without wealth, 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


19 


by the practice of several arts, and also by varied intellectual 
attainments. Aside from the immense aid of personal charms, 
which a few of the many make stepping-stones to eminent 
positions, their bravery, heroism, and indomitable perseverance 
have always been themes for admiration, which poets and his¬ 
torians seize upon with avidity for illustrating their capacity 
and their eminent success in all ages. 

They struggle mightily and die valiantly in defence of their 
honor. Guns, swords, batteries, armies, and ships-of-war are set 
in motion by men for the subjugation of an enemy. Women 
bring conquerors to their feet with the magic of their eyes. 

Philosophical Eeflections. 

Although osteology has been referred to, a study of the 
bones of all kinds of animals, it would be a profitable study in 
female schools and seminaries. There is nothing improper, 
revolting, frightful, or disgusting in the pursuit. N^o better 
opportunity ever presents for impressing upon the plastic minds 
of youth, properly presented, an overwhelming^ argument 
against infidelity, than a plain demonstration of the skill and 
superhuman contrivances exhibited in the adjustment of the 
bones of a bird, a carnivorous beast, or, better still, in the con¬ 
struction of a human skull. 

Children must see things to understand them. The eye 
takes in a group at once, and the impressions made by tangible 
illustrations of the resources of the Divine Originator, in the 
examination of such mechanism, cannot.be easily forgotten. 
To see the tubular bridge spanning the Straits of Menai, the 
traveller has ever after a vivid recollection of its appearance 
and utility, which he could not have by simply reading about 
it. Anatomical researches fail to show any very striking differ- 


20 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


ences in the general construction of men and women. Bones, 
muscles, nerves, blood vessels, most of the glands and viscera, 
are precisely alike in shape and function. 

It is not enough to state explicitly, that all the internal ap¬ 
paratus of organic life so much resemble each other when de¬ 
tached from the cavities in which they were lodged the most 
experienced student of a dissecting-room could not decide 
which were taken from a male, or which from a female. Pro¬ 
ducts of secreting glands, as the salivary in the mouth; the 
lachrymal in the orbits; wax in the external ear, etc., are pre¬ 
cisely the same in composition. In short, whatever is necessary 
for sustaining life in the one is equally so in the other, and 
accomplished precisely in tjie same manner. 

These generalizations are neither new nor e^qually interest¬ 
ing to all; nevertheless, they are curious facts, and not un¬ 
worthy th^ thoughtful consideration of those who confess their 
belief in the existence of a Being who alone could have ori¬ 
ginated these complicated mechanisms, and established laws 
which secure for them, as they do- for planets in their orbits, 
perfect harmony in their movements. 


Kothing by Chai^ce. 

Two deviations in the bones of the female have been special 
points of interest, not on account of their texture or relations, 
but .because they indicate, unmistakably, an office which the 
same bones in a man were not to have. 

The collar-bones, or clavicles, are invariably longer in women 
than in men. Whether she is short or tall, those bone^ always 
maintain the observable proportionable length to the rest of the 
skeleton; otherwise, there are no peculiarities. Attachments 
of ligaments, muscles, the course of vessels over or under them, 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


21 


are no way different in the sexes. 'WTiile women inhabit the 
earth, those collar-bones will have the same relative length, 
whether mothers nurse their babes as they should or not. 

By their extra elongation, their shoulder-blades are forced 
farther back towards the spine, thus making a broader flooring, 
or space, for the lodgment of the breasts in front. This is a 
reason why women cannot exercise their arms gracefully* in 
throwing a ball. Barely, indeed, can they hit a mark in that 
exercise, even with hours of practice. Their awkwardness in 
that respect is proverbial; not, however, from any neglect in 
the education of the muscles of the arm, but from a congenital 
conformation, are they less expert than men intthrowing. The 
difficulty lies in the arrangement of the ends of the muscles, 
further removed from the shoulder-joint, by reason of longer 
clavicles., 

Vocal Box. 

That protuberance of the upper part of the throat, vulgarly 
called Adam’s Apple, from a tradition that the forbidden fniit 
stuck there—described in books under the name of larynx, or 
vocal box—is a genuine musical instrument. Within it there 
are vocal chords, which vibrate as the current of air passes their 
thin edges. The sound thus produced is voice, afterwards 
modulated, and by systematic practice forms a language. 

In men that box, at puberty, becomes enlarged and partially 
ossifies. At that period of development the boy’s voice is 
irregular—a vox rauca —a sign that he is passing from adol¬ 
escence to perfect manhood. 

With females, on the other hand, the original flexibility of 
the cartilages of the larynx remain without much apparent 
alteration; thus they can sing in the same tones through life. 
Their voice remains always the same. No such physiological 


22 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


metamorpliosis occurs in them, as in the boj, that alters tho 
shape or cartilaginous character of the vocal box. For expan¬ 
sion or development of the larynx, its powers were very slowly 
matm’ing -for thirteen or fourteen years, and when the voice 
changes, Nature announces, in that sudden evolution, an extra¬ 
ordinary physiological revolution in the hoy’s system. He is 
then a man. His heard grows, the muscles attain more volume, 
and all the powers of the body and mind are exalted. 

This law perplexes physiologists. They have not success¬ 
fully explained vital phenomena which still await elucidation. 

Why some organs are active, and others quiescent for suc¬ 
cessive years, an^ then quickly hurst into vigorous development, 
waitsr the patient researches of future philosophers., 

In height, weight, and corporeal beauty, women differ from 
men essentially. In their moral constitution they also differ. 
Although neither so tall, so heavy, nor so strong, they are not 
without* a commensurate compensation, always equal, and in 
many respects more interesting, according to the progress of a 
refined civilization. 


Laws of Limitation. 

In comparing the physical structure, it must appear obvious 
to the most supeiUcial observer, there are laws in force which 
regulate and determine animal growth. The elongation of the 
body of a man much beyond the stature of six feet, is a devia¬ 
tion from <a normal standard in nature. An inch or two above 
or below the ordinary height excites no particular surprise, as a 
departure from the ordinary standard of humanity; but six feet 
and a-half or seven feet are anomalies, arresting our attention 
as abnormal^ and, therefore, extraordinary. An experiment of 
an eccentric King of Prussia for rearing an army of giants, by 
compelling the tallest soldiers to marry the tallest women in the 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN: 


23 


kingdom, exclusively, wlietlier they were wdlling or not, is a 
matter of history, which proved singularly unsuccessful. The 
children of such parents, as often as otherwise, presented all. 
those intermediate conditions between short and tall, character¬ 
istic of families in general. In a group of six or eight descend¬ 
ants from' those unusually tall fathers and mothers, perhaps a* 
majority of the sons were six feet. A few were even taller 
than the parents, while the remainder fell considerably below. 

There are representatives of those Anaks in various parts of 
Prussia, at this time, hut nowhere are. there either families or 
communities which have perpetuated an unusual altitude. They 
degenerated to the original measure determined by a recognized 
law of limitation, and there men and women will remain. 

There is a seeming predisposition in tall men to select short 
women for wives. It is an inborn, inexplicable fancy of 
exceedingly tall women to marry short husbands. It may not 
be either universal or imperative, hut it is so frequently occur¬ 
ring as to have been noticed by philosophical writers, earnest 
interrogators of Nature into causes and the effects of causes. 
They think they perceive in this spirit of selection, otherwise 
defined to be an impulse of affection or preference, a law for 
equalizing the height of mankind. Were dwarfs to give pre¬ 
ference to the marital companionship of dwarfs, and giants to 
giants, there would possibly be the two extremes—pigmies and 
Brobdingnags dividing the habitable portions of the earth 
between them, instead of races of rational beings controlled 
by a uniform law of limitation,, standing upon the same plane, 
and averaging the same stature. 

Yery tall men, with remarkably tall wives, are met with 
everywhere, but they are exceptions, rather than illustrations of 
the law of development. • 


CHAPTER III. 


Curiosities of Anatomy. 

Laws of Adaptation—Reference to Lactation—Pelvic Carpentry—Exposures 
to Weather—Being too Delicate—Progress of Sentimentality, etc. 

Peculiarities of the collar-bones, the width and depth of 
the pelvis, articulation • of the thigh-bones and some other 
deviations in the female skeleton already adverted to, are 
quite sufficient for establishing the truth of one important 
proposition;- viz., that they incontestably prove design, and, 
therefore, there was a designer. As we cannot add one inch to 
our stature, or make ourselves either handsome or ugly, we 
are at liberty, as free agents, to improve our condition. The 
form given us in the shape of those few bones, proves as clearly 
as grander exhibitions of Omnipotence, the controlling agency 
of a superior Being. 

Let us analyze a little fairther those few specimens of design, 
to gather further insight into the object contemplated and the 
results to follow. 

These long collar-bones are braces, keeping the shoulder- 
blades from being drawn too far forward by the pectoral 
muscles. Were they to encroach, it would be to the injury of the 
breasts, crowding them out of place, and thus interfering with 
the prescribed function of lactation. 

A female breast offers a more inviting pillow for the infant’s 
head than the hard flat chest of a man. A woman "who has 
had no experience in the care of children always exhibits more 
tact and success in managing them to their satisfaction, than 
the most tender^ sympathizing man. The softness of the invest- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


25 


ing tissues of the chest, the wider space for the infant’s resting 
place, and the delicate cushioning of the ribs, forms an object 
contemplated from the beginning, and ii\dicated beyond ques¬ 
tion by their precise position. 

The out-spreading hip-bones, give a breadth to the fe¬ 
male form, which is striking in any form or fashion of dress, 
compared with fte hips of an adult man. The pelvis is built 
up of only three immensely large, irregularly-shapen pieces, 
constituting its walls. The key, or wedge-bone, under the 
name of os sacrum^ is the base on which rests the spinal column. 
Its prolongation on a horizontal line in animals is the tail, hut 
which in the human skeleton is formed of several distinct pieces, 
gently curved, so as to become, at the extreme tip, a flooring of 
the pelvis, for sustaining the viscera above. 

This particular section of the frame of the female, abound¬ 
ing in curious manifestations of means to ends, is complicated 
with muscles and vessels, and, consequently, cannot readily be 
described in a way to have the mechanism understood, without 
drawings. 


2* 


CHAPTER IV. 

Social Status of Womei^. 

Custom sanctions the treatment of women as though they 
were unable to hear atmospheric exposures, or meet hardships 
of any kind with impunity. It is a mistake. 

When their lives are cast in pleasant places, and they are 
sustained by a conscious independence of circumstances, which 
can only be realized in a state of Christian civilization, they 
then present themselves in the dignity of intellectual character. 
Uneducated, and simply occupying the position of a slave or an 
out-door laborer, they are adequate to the severest test of servile 
employment. 

In refined communities, where contentment prevails, and 
where she is contemplated as a dependent appendage, rather 
than an efficient assistant, woman physically deteriorates. 
Kindness may degenerate into sickly sentimentality. Lamb¬ 
like and gentle, restless, irritable, and presumptuously exacting, 
are the poises that have much to do with the happiness or 
unhappiness of the sex. 

Industry being honored as a virtue, idleness, consequently, 
tips the beam in an opposite direction. Being unemployed is 
no jnark of a lady. Those who imagine it degrades them to be 
associated with pursuits indicative of labor, unfortunately for 
themselves lose what* they most covet,—viz., the admiration of 
their friends. 

In-door industry is, by general consent, commendable, and 
there it is supposed that woman is in her appropriate sphere. 
The cares devolving upon them, married or single, relieve 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


27 


them from those exposures which bronze the features, harden 
the hands, and destroy those traits of gracefulness which largely 
contribute to the withering of their charms. Caring for chil¬ 
dren, presiding as the spirit of order in the domestic circle, or 
giving the products of the field their preparations for the table, 
are not incompatible with elegance of manners, courtesy, and 
the handy disposition of the toilet. 

"When she steps beyond that assigned theatre for the exer¬ 
cise of her powers, whether improved by education or displayed 
in the rudeness of untutored abandonment, a woman is out of 
place. 

Whether wise or foolish, learned or ignorant, poor or rich, 
beautiful or ugly, it is conceded by most men, not by reasoning 
but by intuition, that woman should be favored, and not sub¬ 
jected to the same discipline, in any department of industry, -as 
themselves. On this sentiment civilization took its rise. To 
some extent, savages and barbarians concur with philosophers, 
that females cannot endure as much as men, because they have 
not the same hardy organization; so they alternately favor or 
oppress them, regarding them as servants, but not their equals 
or companions. 

With savages, woman bears all the domestic burdens, suffers 
indignities patiently, and rears up children tenderly, protecting 
them with a mother’s undying love, to be abused by them as 
soon as they have strength in their little arnls to give them a 
blow. 

A tme history of the world is also a record of the wi’ongs 
of woman. Her happiness, her sorrows, her influence, and her 
misfortunes, are not estimated as they should be. She deserves 
heaven as a compensation for her bad ti-eatment on earth. 


28 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Equality of the Sexes. 

In theory it sounds well, when a political demagogue piates 
loudly before a multitude, of human rights and the equality of 
the sexes. A millstone hangs as heavily at the neck of a 
colored woman on a cotton plantation, as it would suspended 
from the neck of the orator’s wife; but circumstances alter 
cases. After election, nothing more is heard of all being bom 
free to pursue their way to happiness, till preparation for open¬ 
ing the polls comes around another year. 

Unfortunately for the best-contrived plans for ameliorating 
social distinctions in this commercial age, it is necessary to 
stand on a pile of dollars in order to receive the same attentions 
accorded to those who actually possess them. Talent, educa¬ 
tion, or blood of martyrs in one’s veins, are no recommendation 
to an acquaintance with property-owners, because revenues are 
the accredited touchstone to respectability. 

Every city in Europe and America has its philosophers in 
rags, splendid women in poverty,' the descendants of great fami¬ 
lies without a shilling. Who cares for them? Who invites 
them to dine when they entertain distinguished guests ? 

Uobody! Uo, they are not asked to take a seat in the broad 
aisle of a church erected by their ancestors ! This is a text for 
reflection, but not a suitable subject for a sermon, it would 
so shock the sensibilities of devout hypocrites, who worship 
mammon under the mistaken idea of honoring the institutes 
of religion. 

* An Inconsistency. 

A glaring inconsistency in the present order of society is 
an unwillingness to allow females to sustain themselves by in¬ 
dustrial pursuits which are claimed to be the legitimate avoca- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


29 


tion of men. By tlieir exclusion, therefore, from entei’prises 
perfectly within their sphere, many are unemployed, while 
another portion are cruelly overworked. 

A million of women in the United States, and perhaps 
twice or thrice that number, contribute nothing to the common 
weal. I^ecessity makes no demand upon them, and conse¬ 
quently they are not only non-producers, but are sustained by 
the industry of others. 

One class of unefiaployed females are denominated ladies, 
because they are above labor, and another stigmatized as va¬ 
grants, if scrutinized legally, on account of doing nothing^ 

'No woman can be so far elevated by the adventitious cir¬ 
cumstances of having an income that defrays her expenses, as 
to be exonerated from a moral obligation of doing as she would 
be done by, in her intercourse with those less fortunate than 
herseK. Where that golden principle is lost sight of by man or 
woman, deterioration follows. . A few are lulled on down and 
pampered on delicacies; others have measured out to them 
bitter draughts: vexations, disappointments, blighted expecta¬ 
tions, thwarted aspirations succeed each other in rapid suc¬ 
cession. Their pathway in life is through darkness and j)ei'sonal 
sufferings. 

'No wonder an expression of despair escapes the lips of 
those who feel themselves born to misfortune, in contrasting 
their condition with others, who never had an ungratified de¬ 
sire. They cannot see why they have been forced into exist¬ 
ence to be miserable. 

God in his wise pui-poses will clear away the clouds which 
make the course of life obscure to our limited mental vision. 
A law of compensation exists on the statutes of the Sovereign 
ruler of events, which will never be repealed while the pillars 
of justice sustain an edifice in heaven not made with hands. 


30 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Those difficult, social, and pecuniary problems are not for us 
to solve. Why sinners are rich or saints poor, cannot be satis¬ 
factorily explained by human wisdom. Divine government is 
impartial, since it rains upon the unjust as copiously as upon 
the just. 

Might and Eight. 

Argue as we may to persuade the favorites of fortune to 
divide their goods with the destitute, they will not do it. In¬ 
side passengers pity those exposed to the peltings of the storm 
outside, but they do not voluntarily exchange places with them. 
Nor do the poor, when unexpectedly put in possession of an 
abundance, manifest a grain more of compassion than those 
they before envied on account of their independence, or de¬ 
nounced for their cold-heartedness and want of sympathy. 

One of the Greatest Ihvehtiohs. 

Money was as potent when Abraham wandered with his 
flocks as it is in the transactions of bankers in this year of 
grace. 

It was a great invention, and clothed with additional inter¬ 
est, when we reflect upon it, that whoever hit upon the idea 
first, of having a piece of metal represent the value of a camel, 
a horse, goods, chattels, or territory, thousands of times larger in 
bulk, and then succeeded in making those to whom the scheme 
was divulged agree to it, still more extraordinary. 

Antiquarians cannot decide the epoch of its first appear¬ 
ance in trade. As far back, however, as sacred or profane his¬ 
tory reaches, money was quite as potent as it now is. So pre¬ 
cious was it .very anciently, it was probably counterfeited, 
which is inferred from a transaction mentioned in the book of 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


31 


Genesis, in which the purchase amounted to four hundred 
shekels, current money of the merchant^ 

Civilization, from its phases in the orient to Anno Domini, 
1873, has not much improved this universal representative of 
wealth. It also represents power. The mere belief that an in¬ 
dividual has more of it than another, gains ascendency for him 
over those who were before his equals. 


CHAPTER V. 


Exterior of the Sexes. 

* 

Why the male lion has a shaggy mane, a larger body, or 
stronger claws than the lioness, is beyond our ken. Throughout 
the animal kingdom, with a few exceptions already partially 
recognized in a preceding chapter, males are larger and stronger 
than females of the same race, and far more beautiful. 

Male birds, from the gaudy peacock to the ground sparrows, 
are magnificently ornamented with variegated plumage, difficult 
to imitate successfully by art. But, on the ascending scale, on 
reaching human beings, there is a reversal of the law. WOman’s 
beauty transcends all other displays of beauty, while man is far 
less engaging in facial expression. His face inspires a different 
kind of surprise, admiration, or sentiments, but no sentiment of 
adoration. 

Man’s face is partially covered by a beard, if he is fully 
developed. His features are bolder, harder, and his build and 
movements are indicative of strength, vigor, and the wildest 
exhibitions of impetuosity. With massive limbs and regular 
deportment, he has no exterior beauty to be compared with the 
exterior of a beautiful woman. A handsome man is handsome 
by contrast, in possessing those harder, bolder, and rougher phy¬ 
sical signs of attributes which animate him. 

Why was a beard bestowed upon man ? That question, many 
times answered, is still open for a more satisfactory explanation 
than has yet been given. If it serves as a sieve to prevent the 
inhalation of dust into the lungs, why not protect a woman in 
the same manner? She crosses the sandy deserts of Africa 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


33 


with her bearded nomadic associates, exposed to the same 
simooms. His cervical glands, a priori^ require no more protec¬ 
tion than those on her throat performing precisely the same office. 

Alternations of heat and cold do not interfere with the 
functions of those salivary organs in her exposed neck, any 
oftener than when matted with a bushy heard. Hor do we 
admit the cogency of the argument, that a beard is a sign to 
signify the perfection of manhood. Those fair-skinned or dark 
tribes, or the red Indians of this Continent, are provided with 
no such appendage. The Caucasian has a beard. We shave it 
off daily, but Hature takes no hint—cares nothing about the 
inconvenience to which we are subjected in removing it with a 
dull razor: it continually grows. It was intended to subserve 
some useful purpose, but at present physiologists cannot agree 
what that is. Were non-bearded men mentally inferior, or 
those persons less muscular, a clue would be found to a solution 
of the question. There are as many Samsons without a beard, 
and bald, as there are with long locks and a disgusting sheet 
of tangled beard swaying over their linen bosoms. 

Straggling hairs on the chin and the angles of the mouth on 
females are taken, on slender authority, however, as indications 
of a masculine character and sterility. A Spanish woman was 
extensively exhibited a few years since in all the principal cities, 
who had a prodigiously black bushy beard. She was the mother 
of three children, neither of whom appeared to have inherited 
a predisposition to its mother’s anomalous appearance. 

In her case, the development of a beard did not diminish a 
womanly expression of refinement and feminine excellence, 
nor did it interfere with any maternal relations. It was thick, 
glossy, long, which, with thick-set whiskers, would have been 
the delight of scores of beardless bucks who have vainly coaxed 
for a show on a smooth chin, through costly pots of perfumed 
bear’s-grease. 3 


34 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


When women have passed the age of maternity, it is quite 
common to be annoyed with straggling hairs shooting out on 
the upper lip, and about the lower edge of the chin; but 
attempts at removing them by violence, the grip of tweezers, or 
jerks by the fingers, by creating a slight local inflammation^, 
furnishes an extra determination of blood to the locality, that 
rather augments the crop. Depilatories are to be had in the 
shops which remove them without inflicting an injury to the 
complexion. ^ 

Female Voice. 

A particularly sonorous voice is ordinarily associated with a 
beard in men. The tone of the female voice is subject to none 
of the changes which the boy’s larynx produces on his voice in 
passing through a pubert revolution of his system. The girl of 
the age of the boy is more matm’e, and shows her advance 
beyond him in the contour of her chest. Both remain physi¬ 
cally stationary for many successive years. At forty-five or 
fifty, depending to some extent, perhaps, on climate, all other 
circumstances being equal, she passes through a change quite as 
curious and inexplicable as any phenomena which are stumbling- 
blocks in science. 

With all her faculties in maturity, in health, in capacity for 
all the responsibilities belonging to her surroundings, nature is 
inflexible by declaring she shall no longer exercise the functions 
of a mother—she can no longer bear children. 

On the other hand, man may possibly be a father at any 
period from youth to a full one hundred years, if reliance is to 
be placed in the statements of very high medical authority. 

Some men’s voices are not essentially altered in timbre at 
puberty. They are harsh, unmusical, or squeaky, which is 
attributable to an arrest of larynx development while otlier 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


35 


revolutionary changes are taking place in the natural order of 
events. An analogous transition in the vocal apparatus of fowls 
is noticeable. Young cocks make laudable efforts at crowing, 
which are ridiculous, compared with the full sonorous voice of 
a fully-grown chanticleer. Wild fowds exhibit no very noisy 
vocalizations like crowing. Theirs is a repetition of one or two 
notes or warbles. A sonorous voice is due, in part, to an evo¬ 
lution of sinuses or apartments in the bones of the cheeks and 
frontal bone, iny^hich there are large chambers, bearing a certain 
proportion to the capacity of the box in which the vocal cords 
vibrate. In eunuchs, these sonorous rooms for the reverberation 
of sounds are hardly perceptible. There are none in children. 
The plates of bone begin to recede for the formation of sinuses 
at puberty. They are extensive in the skull of the lion, whose 
roar is a terrific sound in those dreary regions where he prowls 
a monarch over beasts. 

Their Eibs. 

From immemorial time a vague impression has been enter¬ 
tained among those most susceptible in the way of marvels, of 
course the most ignorant, that men have not as many j*ibs on 
one side as the other; and the reason given for it is simply this, 
viz.; that Adam had one taken out for the manufacture of Eve. 
A very ridiculous notion, without a single fact to base it upon. 
Every well-formed man has precisely twelve ribs on each side, 
twenty-four in all. Seven are long, articulated to the breast¬ 
bone through the intervention of elastic cartilages. Five on either 
side are short, articulated posteriorly to the spine, but their front 
extremities float loosely in the fleshy walls of the abdomen.* 

* A monomaniac in one of the Western States, in May, 1871, undertook 
to extract one of his own ribs, out of which it was his purpose to make a 
wife who should come up to his ideal standard of a proper companion for a 
bachelor of means 1 




36 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


This curious arrangement in the lower rihs allows for the 
enlargement of the stomach and bowels, and the flexion of the 
body forward. 

All the ribs of serpents are free at their anterior extremity, 
and move like feet in crawling, each being acted upon by a 
complicated attachment of muscles. In consequence of their 
peculiar articulation to the backbone by a kind of rolling ball 
and socket joint, those hideous reptiles are enabled to swallow 
their prey in one piece, even when the mass has a greater 
diameter than their own body; the ribs, being pressed off either 
way, react back, as so many springs, to compress the contents 
of the stomach into the smallest dimensions as the process of 
digestion proceeds. 

In number, situation, and use, the ribs are the same in both 
sexes. Tlie muscular cordage embracing them is also the same, 
and they bear the same names. 

Even admitting it to be literally true that a rib was taken 
from Adam, which we have no right to doubt, deformities, 
malformations, or defective developments, we have seen, are 
not transmissible. If they were, then there would be a space 
for a missing rib. 

An excess of members is not unfrequent, but in a majority 
of instances, when there are supernumerary parts, as an extra 
finger, extra ears, supernumerary toes, etc., they invariably ap¬ 
pear to have belonged to another being. In the commencement 
of uterine existence, there were two germs; the growth of one 
being arrested, while some fragments becoming attached to the 
other, in the progress of development, were nourished and be¬ 
came a part of the living child. 

In every case, supernumerary appendages are considered as 
having been the property of the blighted twin. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


37 


Steange Freaks in Nature. 

A man advanced in years, awhile since, exhibited himself 
extensively, who presented the strange anomaly of the lower 
limbs of an infant protruding from just below the pit of his 
stomach. To the spectator it had the appearance of a babe 
half hidden in his abdomen. 

Originally there were twins. There was an arrest of devel¬ 
opment of one, from the hips upward. The other portion 
became attached to the other at the point of union described, 
and then there was a second interruption. The limbs had 
attained their present size, when all further growth was com¬ 
pletely suspended. Had there been no causes operating to 
interfere with the uniform law of utero-gestation, there would 
have been a pair of twins of equal completeness in form and 
development. 

The babes that recently died, bom at the West, whose bodies 
were united in a way to appear as though lying on their backs, 
with their heads in opposite directions, are a further illustration 
of this melting of two beings into one. 

Occasionally twins are born united firmly back to back. 
The Siamese twins were held together by a large ligamentous 
mass, the division of which might peril their lives, no surgeon 
being willing to sever the connection for fear of a hemorrhage 
from arteries they might not be able to control. 

Where there are two heads wdth only one body, as seen in 
the colored sisters who have been through the States, they are 
two distinct persons. This is certain, because the two brains 
pursue different trains of thought, utter words, and constantly 
show in their mental manifestations they are distinct in soul, 
though nourished and sustained by one body. It is quite prob- 


38 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


able, however, tliat it will be discovered there are- two spines, 
and two distinct spinal cords, hereafter. 

An agent who appeared to have a pecuniary interest at stake 
in this double-headed girl, proposed insurance on her life at an 
office in l^ew York. A question was at once mooted, whether 
there were two or only one individual to be examined. There 
w^ere four lower limbs, but only one set of bowels, and, as it 
was thought, only one stomach. A paper was handed in from 
a medical gentleman of Boston, who gave it as his decided 
opinion there were two persons in the one! 

In the course of these deliberations, we shall endeavor to 
show that defects are not propagated to the injury of a race. 
Individuals, but not families, are imperfect in form. Nature 
is conservative and corrects deviations, but never perpetuates 
them. Accidental circumstances modify conditions. Hence, 
the children of such deviations from a. normal standard are not 
like their parents. One-arm children, children with only one 
leg, or those with extra limbs, are not, as a natural consequence, 
the offspring of parents thus defective or over-burdened with 
useless appendages. 

Pelvic Constkijction. 

Notwithstanding the consideration that has been given in 
preceding pages to the pelvis, as a piece of mechanism, unri¬ 
valled, curious from the simplicity Df its construction, and the 
many essential offices it sustains, it would be unpardonable .to 
omit pointing out to parents, instructors, and those having 
charge of school-houses, seminaries, and institutions for the 
education of females, a danger that should be avoided, but 
which rarely receives any thought beyond the lecture-room of a 
medical college. 

In a sitting posture, the weight of the body is transmitted 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 39 

to the seat through the lower ends of two bones, having an 
irregular knob-shape, called ossa ischia. 

If in early youth those three bones composing the pelvis, 
are forced out of place, or gradually distorted by pressm’e, it 
may not only produce a subsequent life of misery, but abso¬ 
lutely be a cause of a painful death to a woman. 

As repeatedly asserted, the bones are slow of growth, and 
not completely ossified till near the twentieth year in females. 
A neglect to provide them with soft cushions or elastic cover¬ 
ings, instead of hard benches, hard chairs, or harder stools, 
while pursuing their studies, may produce such deviations in 
those bones as to be ever after beyond relief. A hard bone out 
of shape, or forced from the line it would have taken had it 
not been for liabitual violence, cannot be pressed back to the 
position it should have to secure the benefits of a perfect organ¬ 
ization. 

!N’o school for female children should b§ considered suitable 
for them, if the seats are not as generously supplied with cusli-' 
ions as the pews of a church. 

The same danger does not threaten boys on board-benches. 
Their pelvic bones are set nearer together, are stouter, heavier, 
and the depth from the pubic brim to lower margin is shal¬ 
lower. In a word, on the perfect form of that bony basin de¬ 
pends the existence of the human race. 

There is no parallelism between female savages and deli¬ 
cately nurtured young ladies, the pride and the glory of civili¬ 
zation. The latter cannot endure the privations nor sustain 
themselves under a tithe of those vicissitudes which are inciden¬ 
tal to nomadic life. While civilization brings out the moral 
and intellectual faculties of an immortal soul, it carries in its 
train customs, habits, and tendencies which sometimes debilitate, 
undermine, or effectually destroy individual constitutions. 


40 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


We cannot dwell on all the points that present themselves on 
reflecting npon what and how w^e are to act in regard to favor¬ 
ing the proper development of young females. They demand 
far more attention than they receive in the way of delicate 
attention. There is a public duty and obligation to be dis¬ 
charged, independently of parental solicitude. Providing them 
with soft seats in schools and seminaries is indispensable, and 
for the reasons here set forth. 


CHAPTER VI. 

Imperfect Development of Women. 

In no country are there so many imperfectly developed 
females as in this, in proportion to the population. Kor are 
there more perfectly formed ones on the globe. 

"When a woman is defective in physical development, there 
is sometimes a corresponding imperfection of mind. Excessive 
nervous irritability, or any deviation from an uniform expres¬ 
sion of that calm, consistent deportment which is a command¬ 
ing element in the character of a lady, may be due to some 
derangements in her system. 

It is proverbial that women of the Eastern States are 
spare, sharp-featured, and wear an anxious, restless expres¬ 
sion. There are smiling faces, and fair ones too; but most 
of them exhibit an air of haste, nervous agitation on slight 
occasions, quite at variance with that gentleness of manner, 
sweetness, and affability, which, properly directed, wins more 
than a park of artillery could control. 

Climate is chargeable with many influences which derange 
temperaments. Nevertheless, it is sadly to be lamented that, 
while ^ome are constitutionally less attractive than others, it 
is their misfortune to make themselves unnecessarily repulsive. 
Assuming they have a presumptive right to do as they choose, 
and all men are bound in courtesy to bear and forbear under 
a galling fire from their batteries, such women are more 
dreaded than loved. 

■Women who are resolved upon driving, mistake their 
3* 


42 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


mission. Weak men may be led by them; but it is a difficult 
undertaking to drive those they may most desire to have at 
their mercy. 

No woman who has arrived at eighteen with a flat chest, 
is harmoniously developed. Prominent signs of womanhood, 
the absence of which are indications of a defect to be deplored, 
not because she is less vivacious, less capable, or less able to 
fill the role prescribed to the sex in the ordinary pursuits of 
-life, are very common with irritable temperaments. The 
ingenuity of dressmakers and india-rubber manipulators is 
consequently invoked. 

There are young ladies, in the ratio, perhaps, of ten in 
a hundred, in the Northern and Eastern States, on whom 
there is no mammal elevation till they become mothers. 
When that event occurs, there is an immediate deposition of 
fat round the lactic ducts to protect the breast from injury 
during lactation. At weaning, the adipose deposit is absorbed, 
and the vessels, so carefully surrounded by elastic tissue against 
the possible contingencies of contusions, while the fountain 
was supplying the wants of a new being, shrink back to the 
surface of the great pectoral muscle, hardly larger than fine 
threads. 

Fashionable interference with nature is the secret of this 
anomalous condition. To an extent quite noticeable, the cut 
and fit of garments suppress the mammal characteristic of 
perfect womanhood. 

It is a tacit acknowledgment in trade, that art takes the 
j)lace of nature in all cases where show answers all the 
purposes of substance. 

Artificial limbs, wigs, cambric breast-cups, basket-work 
convexities, wooden calves, etc., which improve the appear¬ 
ance, are neither violations of statute or social law, and. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 43 

therefore, will not be abandoned while one sex has a desire 
to appear well made to the other. 

So artistically are mammal appliances put in place, res¬ 
piration produces all the movements as when the organs are in 
full maturity.. 

An imposition is practised both on old and young ladies 
of non-mammal development condition, that should be exposed. 
There is on sale in shops an ointment, exceedingly precious, 
according to the shameful misrepresentation of proprietors, for 
promoting the growth of the breasts. 

Medications, either externally or internally, for that pur¬ 
pose, are positively useless. The swindle is enormously 
profitable, because no female, after wasting as many dollars as 
she has teeth, has the moral com’age to denounce the fraud. 
It would be confessing her failure in the experiment. So 
the sale goes briskly on, and will till something new, repre¬ 
sented more potent, with a sweeter odor, takes its place. 
Empty-headed bucks and beardless fops patronize whisker 
fertilizers in the same way, without ever having started 
three hairs where none were designed to grow. 

Anomalies. 

When the hair bulbs are wanting, or are but imperfectly 
developed, which are hereditary conditions in some families, 
no medications are effectual in quickening them into activity. 
When they are imagined to have been serviceable in pro¬ 
moting a growth of hair, it is from friction in nibbing on 
the article, and not the preparation which produces the change. 

Anomalous peculiarities show themselves from generation 
to generation in families. A predisposition to baldness is 
one; a beardless chin is another. But such departures are 


44 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


not uniform. Thus one son has a full heard and whiskers, 
while a brother is deficient in both. It is to be observed, in 
regard to these deviations from a normal type, or inconstancy 
in external markings, that there are no departures or variations 
in organs essential to perfect nutrition. 

Through the entire history of the Kendalls, as far as 
chronicles refer, a child is occasionally born with six toes, 
on one or both feet, or with an extra finger outside the small 
one, on one or both hands. But that by no means warrants a 
belief the Kendalls of England, or their relatives in America, 
are the lineal descendants of extinct Palestine giants, who 
^v^ere thus provided with additional toes and fingers. It is 
rather to be explained on the philosophical principle that has 
already been suggested, viz., that each and every supernu¬ 
merary finger or toe is the remnant and only surviving one 
of a blighted twin, that would have been born had all its 
parts been symmetrically developed in time. 

A female dwarf is often seen in Kew York, petitioning 
for charity, wEose arms terminate at the elbows. There are 
no fore-arms. On the end of each stump are fieshy kernels, 
which may be properly considered rudimentary fingers. This 
is an instance of arrested development, and not to be con¬ 
founded with cases of excess of members. Her lower limbs 
are perfect in shape, but not elongated, which indicates a 
second arrest of vital force at the period usually most active 
in children, when the shafts of their cylindrical bones are 
lengthened. 

There is a much-respected member of the British House 
of Commons who never had arms or legs, nor are there any 
rudimentary prominences to lead to the supposition they ever 
had a germinal existence. Melancholy as this extraordinary 
form of defective external organization appears, he is a man 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


45 


distinguislied for a brilliant and cultivated intellect.. With 
singular adroitness, he writes with a pen in his mouth. That, 
too, shows to what vicarious uses muscles may be trained, 
and how the nerves, even those emanating from ganglionic 
centres, may conduct volitions or carry influences widely 
different from those assigned to them by the physiologists. 

Abnormal Deviations. 

The subject is not yet exhausted. Some further obser¬ 
vations on the fruitful topic of deviations are appropriate. 
A violation of a natural law does not abrogate it. It may 
be more logically expressed by repeating the words of another 
chapter,. that a law of nature cannot be altered or abolished. 
In those singular deviations in animal forms from the true 
type, we see that a constant effort for a correction of the 
error or defect is apparent. Hature never relaxes or aban¬ 
dons the undertaking till the object is fully accomplished. 

A calf with two heads, a pig with only one eye, a chicken 
with four legs, or a ISTellis without arms, is a departure from 
a prescribed pattern. They are aberrations, and therefore 
not to be repeated by direct projiagation. Whenever they 
happen, it is dtie to circumstances which we have not had 
the sagacity to detect by scientific researches. 

Physical defects that incapacitate individuals from serving 
themselves according to the requirements of their nature, and 
for aiding and assisting their offspring till they are in a 
condition' to take care of themselves, independently of the 
parents, are not represented in their progeny. Monsters are 
neither the fathers or mothers of monsters. Were it other¬ 
wise, confusion would follow, and no two animals would 
resemble each other in form, in character, or habits. The 


46 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


woild would teem with frightful creatures, more hideous and 
terrible than the prolific imaginations of poets muster for 
their most daring contests with strange beings, created for 
special occasions. 

Okiginal Forms Preserved. 

Bj ingenious, persevering manipulations, flowers, fruits, and 
even animals may be produced wholly unlike those from which 
their origin was derived. But they cannot he kept at that 
point. A tendency to fall hack to the form and condition of 
the original type cannot he effectually suppressed. A gardener’s 
treatment, unrelaxed, furnishes the market with uncommonly 
large strawberries; hut a relaxation of his attentions would be 
taken advantage of, by vigilant nature, to turn them back to 
the size to which the law of limitation had assigned them. 

Animals may be so amalgamated by interfering with the 
laws of reproduction, as to bring into being forms that indicate 
an origin from mixing races. They may not very accurately 
resemble either parent, and yet there are characteristic pecu¬ 
liarities which belong to both. Mules are neither horses nor 
asses. Without the beauty of the first, or insignificance of 
the latter, they are highly-prized hybrids, often taller than the 
horse, longer-lived than either of the pareifts, and with a 
hardier constitution, greater powers of endurance, and immu¬ 
nity from diseases to which both are incident. With such 
excellent properties, mules do not breed mules. Nature is 
consistent with herself in the enforcement of laws for the 
preservation of species. 

Origin of Species. 

We shall not meddle with the engrossing subject of evolu¬ 
tion, the present plaything of scientists. Whether we are 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


47 


degenerated monkeys or the cliildren of Adam, is of np conse¬ 
quence in these inyestigations. It is enough that we are here; 
but how or when the first human being assumed the preroga¬ 
tives of- a man, if the Mosaic cosmogony is ignored, cannot be 
determined by quarrelling with theorists. 

To fortify the position assumed, that nature does not allow 
of the reproduction of defects, or rather deficiencies, of parts 
essential for individual protection, further illustrations might 
be collected quite as cogent as any already cited. 

Of a large collection of remarkable examples, two more only 
are introduced, not so much on account of their novelty as to 
preseiwe a connecting fact, usually omitted, viz.; that persons 
born without a full complement of limbs feel no deprivation on 
that account, nor would they ever repine over the misfortune, 
were they not commiserated and educated to a knowledge of 
their condition. 

A bank clerk resided in Boston, born with only one perfect 
arm and hand. The other stopped short at the elbow. Ex¬ 
ceedingly expert in handling bills at the counter, he could not 
conceive of any use for another hand if he had had one. 

Mr. Nellis, whose name was once familiar from Maine to 
Georgia, was born without arms. Not the slightest rudimentary 
elevation at the shoulders indicated a blighting of elementary 
limbs. Plis skill in using scissors with his toes, writing legibly 
and rapidly, drawing, handling a knife, firing at a mark with a 
bow and arrow, was very surprising. He was a well-informed, 
intelligent person, whose conversation and deportment were 
those of a gentleman of refinement. Mr. Nellis frankly stated 
that he could not realize that he was defective in any essential 
particular, because he had no use for arms if he had them. 

While waiting for a train at the western depot in Boston, 
some years ago, a tall man came to the stove to warm himself, 


48 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


whose hands were on his shoulders. They were large, and the 
fingers long and bony, having the appearance of being used in 
laborious pursuits. The arm-bones were there, no longer than 
at birth, but stout and strong. The case is without a parallel 
in the writer’s experience. Had he been questioned, no doubt 
he would have said he experienced no particular inconvenience 
from the deformity, because he had not been deprived of any 
better arms. 

Induced Modifications of Fokms. 

Mr. Charles Brown, a native of Waltham, Mass., died in 
1871 , whose right arm-bone, between the shoulder-joint and 
elbow, was absorbed completely, and carried out of the system. 
An injury, inflicted by a blow from the horn of an ox he was 
visiting in the stall, produced inflammation, which, without 
much pain, and certainly before there was apprehension of 
danger, resulted in that most extraordinary removal of a long 
cylindrical bone, without the escape of a single particle through 
an external aperture. Tlie brace being taken away which kept 
the muscles extended, they drew the elbow up to very near the 
shoulder, bulging out, of course, in shortening, by contraction, 
destroying the symmetry of the arm. When his Angers grasped 
an object, or he lifted a laden basket, handled the reins of a 
harnessed horse, the arm was elongated to the original lengtli. 
On letting go, the muscles would instantly contract like india- 
rubber straps. 

With animals, when there are anomalies in respect to limbs, 
there is commonly an excess rather than a deflciency. We 
have seen a dog without four legs which had acquired a method 
of going ahead with a degree of fleetness quite surprising. 

It is possible to very materially abridge the growth of parts, 
to distort bones, and to promote or diminish vital force in the 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


49 


rearing of children. Civilization is imperfect when it conflicts 
with nature. 

The Deess of Little Girls, 

They should never wear tight-fltting dresses over tlie chest. 
Entire and perfect freedom should invariably be given to that 
region. Any close contact of clothing over the pectoral mus¬ 
cles, or habitual compression, is an interference with a series of 
local changes, slowly progressing there, of incalculable import¬ 
ance in the economy of female life. Perfectly soft, pliable 
fabrics for their apparel need not be urged upon those who seek 
for knowledge in reference to a conscientious discharge of paren¬ 
tal duties. For the ignorant, or those who care but little, for those 
who assert there is something more to learn, before we have 
exhausted tlie springs of thought, these comments are intended. 

In the anatomical arrangements of the female chest, there 
is a congenital preparation for the development of organs at a 
proper time, the elements of which have been quiescent from 
early infancy. By and by compact cells are filled, and the 
mamma rise is organic completeness. 

If, however, compression is maintained there, regularly and 
habitually, when an increased vital activity is preparing for the 
development of those organs, the contest will not be a pro¬ 
tracted one between nature and opposition. Arterial energy 
will diminish under restraint, and the breasts wdll not rise, as 
they would have appeared, had no hindrance to the developing 
force been operating. 

Even when there is a considerable adipose fulness uncon¬ 
nected with the mammary apparatus in its embryotic form, if 
close-fitting garments are habitually worn, the roundness and 
softness will be reduced, by absorption of the material deposi¬ 
ted in the subcutaneous tissues. 

4 


50 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Under tlie pretext for protecting the chest from cold, some 
mothers are despotically disposed to swathe their little daugh¬ 
ters as closely as bandaged mummies. It is wholly wrong. I^oth- 
ing should he allowed to interfere with the space between the 
shoulders in front to the tip of the hreast-bone. Harnessing 
them in stays, corsets, or, indeed, any other contrivances of fash¬ 
ionable acceptance for improving the forms of young girls, are 
abominations. 

By mismanagement, with the intention of improving upon 
nature, that they niay have more .attractions, and more arrows 
in their quivers when young ladies, mothers do them an irre¬ 
parable injury. 

Development oe Vital Eokce. 

Uriction will partially raise the tone of vessels ‘thaf minis¬ 
ter to the mamma, hut medications are inert and powerless in 
developing them where violence of dress prevented their 
growth at first. 

Having shown the uselessness of lotions, unguents, electric¬ 
ity, or other trumpeted remedies for defective mammary devel¬ 
opment, and the grossness and unblushing impudence of im¬ 
postors in that line of imposition, we proceed to another 
field where the harvest is large and the laborers few. 

A withered or partially palsied limb may be improved by 
rubbing. The hand of a sound person is a thousand-fold better 
than a fiesh-hmsh or hair-mitten. Friction accelerates the fiow 
of blood where the circulation is sluggishly carried on, owing 
to the defective iirflux of nervous infiuence, which, together 
with warmth and the electrical current from the ofiiciatina* 

O 

operator, raises the tone of vitality in the member. 

Women imperfectly developed are apt to he excitable, 
apprehensive, and wear the look of being cautiously watching 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


51 


for surprises. They are the women who are restless without 
cause, and unhappy in the midst of pleasant surroundings. 
They represent that class of ladies who are not treated as 
they consider they ought to be by their husbands. Con¬ 
ditions of the mind are recognized in which revolting crimes 
are perpetrated by women, not accounted for upon any well- 
established principles in mental philosophy, which, perhaps 
remotely, have a connection with some of those abnormal 
conditions of organs closely in sympathy with the brain, 
about which we shall know more when the progress of science 
has settled other questions respecting the phenomena of 
human life. 

Mental feebleness may have been caused by a want of 
force from sources not precisely nervous centres. And the 
other extreme, of paroxysms of unbridled rage, arise from 
an excess of vitality, driven onward to engorge parts whose 
intimate relations to the encephalon are more direct than 
hitherto supposed. 

Medical Jurispkudence. 

Medical jurisprudence is destined to undergo modifications, 
to keep pace with a more perfect knowledge of the brain, 
and especially the' female brain, acted upon as it is by infiu- 
ences peculiar to themselves. When lawmakers have been 
educated to a comprehensive knowledge of the origin of 
nervous power, and particularly understand the phenomena 
of the passions, they may more reasonably account for many 
ungovernable freaks of an excited woman than are made 
easy of comprehension by writers on moral insanity. 

In closing these monitory suggestions in reference to 
dressing little girls, it is hopM that no one may be so 
uncharitable as to consider it is impertinence to discuss a 


52 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


subject that actually has an important bearing on tlie physical 
well-being of female adults. 

Physicians and tormented mothers know, by painful 
experience, of the origin of another misfortune; indeed a 
considerable one, too, which is, perhaps, caused by tight 
dressing, and certainly aggravated by it. 

Special Grievances. 

Undeveloped nipples, far more common than supposed, 
are an interminable source of trouble, because an infant 
cannot apply its mouth for drawing milk. Artificial means 
for nourishing the child must necessarily be adopted, always 
to be deplored; and in the next place, the breast is injured 
by over-distension of the milk-ducts, or infiuenced by frequent 
applications of instruments for drawing off the secretion that 
would have been extracted with pleasurable suctions instead 
of painful infiictions, by the delicate lips of her darling. 

That condition which gives employment to wet-nurses in 
the most fashionable circles, rarely occurs in the middle classes 
of society, l^ature has her own way with children of the 
laboring classes. Little girls are not dressed and re-dressed in 
starched garments half a dozen times a day, to meet the 
requirements of dinner etiquette, the tea-table, the evening 
drawing-room, and various other specialties, to fit them for 
the positions they are presumed destined to sustain when of’ 
a proper age. Consequently they grow up in health, with 
the form they ought to have, and which the millionaire’s 
daughters would have had, had they been simply let alone. 

Who ever heard of a peasant mother requiring a wet- 
nurse ? Where can a poor man’s cluld be found brought up 
on a bottle, in consequenee of the impossibility of taking its 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


53 


nourisliment from the fountain prepared for it before birth, 
because the mother’s nipples were prevented from developing 
bj the indiscreetness of her mother? 

In the fulness of om' civilization, which is the triumph of 
reason over ignorance, we choke ourselves with tight cravats; 
ligate our limbs with straps, bracelets, or something equally 
objectionable, to check circulation; mount up on high heels, 
that force the feet out of the plane of comfort; wear patent 
leather, which prevents evaporation of moisture; cover our 
heads with air-tight hats at the expense of our hair; sport 
with glasses that spoil our eyes; fill our stomachs with com¬ 
positions productive of gastric derangements, and vainly seek 
relief from self-inflicted miseries that shorten life, in gorging 
with drugs that are worse than the diseases they were expected 
to remove I 


CHAPTER VII. 

The Dress of Womeh. 

Small Waists—Sufferings from Fashion—Local Deformities—Compression 
of the Chest—Development of Consumption—Unheeded Advice—Form 
of Boys—How Female Dresses should be Worn. 

Having explained, in extenso^ the injurious effects resulting 
from improperly adjusted garments on female children when 
they are coming into womanhood, let us now investigate the 
positive character of modern female dress in respect to the 
production of disabilities traceable to that source in adult life. 

Invention is, perhaps, exercised as actively in the produc¬ 
tion of new patterns, or modification of old ones, in the 
garments of women, as in any department of human industry. 
There is neither lull nor suspension in that most prolific field 
of restless variety. There is no stability in fashions. It is not 
required; since rest in that direction would be equivalent to 
a return to a system of simplicity and comfort identical with 
demi-civilization, if not barbarism. 

Complete ease and freedom of the muscles seems never to 
have been contemplated in these ever-changing forms of their 
clothing; and the nearer they approach the borders of dis- 
comforture, without exactly killing themselves outright, the 
more agreeable, measured by a standard of the votaries of 
fashion. 


How THE Chest is Injured. 

It is singular that in the manifold styles of dress which 
succeed each other with the rapidity almost of barometrical 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


55- 


variations of temperature, not one of them favors the freedom 
of the thorax or chest. That is the axle to which all pieces 
are attached, and the pivot around which they revolve, if 
at all. 


Small Waists. 

A small waist is the first consideration. It is, therefore, 
the study of those who conceive they are too large just where 
there should be no interference with the respiratory apparatus, 
how to diminish their diameter. This desideratum has been 
the premature death of thousands upon thousands of the fairest 
and most promising young ladies, before they had time to 
learn the dangers they were inviting by following the example 
of those who teach by their practice that they prefer conformity 
to the requirements of a perverted taste, to exemption from the 
penalties of being out of shape, in the sense of those who 
exercise no judgment in regard to this important matter. The 
smaller the waist, therefore, the better, provided there is 
space enough preserved for descent of food to the stomach. 

Stays are the instrumentalities for staying the development 
of the chest. Beginning early, the ribs are pinioned closely, 
and by unrelaxing ligation—the lacing being carried to the 
last endurable point without arresting respiration — their 
growth is arrested to an extent only familiarly known to 
anatomists. Their function is nearly destroyed, as they 
become anchylosed, or welded, where they were intended 
to have motion up and down, according to the inflation and 
collapse of the lungs. After being subjected to the torture 
of stays, for such it is, however eloquently those who have 
lived through the operation of having their chests kept down 
to the capacity of a child of twelve years, may argue to the 
contrary, breathing is with them an abridged function—or it 


56 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


may be arrested without hesitation. They have counteracted 
nature, and in various ways must, and do, suffer in con¬ 
sequence. 

They even carry this violence to the chest still further, 
and interfere lamentably with the recti muscles in front of 
the abdomen, which reach from the pit of the stomach to the 
pubic arch. These are strong elastic straps for keeping the 
bowels in place and in contact. Thus, tight lacing forces the 
intestines out of place. One organ is driven too near another, 
and the stomach, instead of being pendulous, restrained by 
its own ligaments, is pressed down out of place, and that 
drags the spleen; while the free rise and fall of the diaphragm 
is limited, which strikes at life itself, because the lungs cannot 
be fully inflated when such displacements exist. 


Displacement of Okgans. 

After being worn till all these disturbances have become 
bearable, the distorted organs having been adjusted in new re¬ 
lations from which there was no escape, when a lady removes 
her stays she is very uncomfortable, because all those internal 
parts, acting in duresse, have a tendency to return into those 
natural relations from which they were forcibly driven. 

Those abdominal muscles which keep the abdomen braced 
in symmetrical relations, entirely lose their contractible energy 
by being for a long while relieved from duty; and hence, in 
taking away the artiflcial support, the mass of viscera gravitates 
in a way to make a very undesirable abdominal protuberance 
in front. Hence, when broken into stays, the harness eannot 
be dispensed with without discomforture. 

Chambermaids imitate their mistresses, as far as their eir- 
cumstances allow, in self-imposed misery. Fashions and cus- 



THE CONTRACTED CHEST. 

An outline Is here presented of the cliest of- a female, to show the actual condi¬ 
tion of the bones, as they appear after death, in every lady who lias habitually 
worn tightly drawn stays. 

All the false ribs from the lower end of the breastbone, are unnaturally cramped 
inwaixlly towards the spine, so that the liver, stomach and other digestive organs 
in the immediate vicinity, are pressed into such small compass, that their functions 
are interrupted, and in fact, all the vessels, bones and viscera, on which the 
individual is constantly depending for health, are more or less distorted and 
enfeebled. 






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THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


57 


toms are infectious. "VYlien endemic, they have a regular run. 
Females, tlierefore, in the constitution of society, suffer more 
than men by the mutations of fashions. The latter make them¬ 
selves ridiculous by the cut of their coats, the shape of their 
hats, or the show of toggery on their watch-chains; but they are 
too much afraid of dying before their time comes, to kill them¬ 
selves with stays, although a few brainless fops make them¬ 
selves extra ridiculous by wearing them. 


Who to Consult. 

If it is desirable for women to have convincing proof of the 
injury they voluntarily inflict upon themselves, that they may 
imagine themselves more attractive in the estimation of others, 
let them consult medical authorities. They will there have the 
collected opinions of professional men, who can have no motive 
for misrepresentations, that the sacriflce of women through the 
vice of dress, and destruction of infantile life, through malfor¬ 
mations, displacements, and special maladies induced from the 
wearing of stays, is a melancholy comment on one of the 
demands of modern civilization. Ladies thus deformed, and in 
a part of the body, too, which prevents the respiratory organs 
and the heart from carrying on processes of importance to the 
vital status of the individual, look with disgust upon the little 
feet of a Chinese belle, kept down to the size of an adult great 
toe by bandages. They are cruelly served—not voluntarily. It 
is no self-inflicted torture; they uncomplainingly submit to 
make themselves more saleable, but it is forced upon them by 
ambitious parents, that they may bring a remunerating price for 
the trouble of rearing them. Of course, with such feet, they 
cannot walk with steadiness or facility. They must have sup¬ 
port by a fan against a wall, a parasol, or the occasional touch 

4 * 


68 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. . 


of some solid resisting body, or fall to the floor. And this is 
beautiful! Nor is it a whit more absurd than disfiguring the 
chest, not allowing it to expand, nor half so injurious. There 
are neither lungs or a pulsating heart in the feet, but there are 
both in the pleural cavities. 


Maternal Interest in Daughters. 

Maternal solicitude for the position and happiness of a daugh¬ 
ter is manifested very differently in this country and China. 
There, no mother in whose bosom there is a grain of motherly 
affection, would be so lost to a sense of duty as to let her loved 
Ky-yan-ste shoot up to the stature of herself with feet as large 
as a Christian’s. No, indeed, that would be barbarous beyond 
forgiveness. 

Compressing the waist with stays has precisely the same 
effect on the carpentry of the bones, that bandaging the feet 
produces. "When the violence is completed, the first cannot 
move comfortably without her stays, nor the latter hobble 
through a room without having her ankles secured by many 
yards of firm, strong, inelastic bandages, which, for show, are 
made of richly-colored ribbons. Thoracic compression alters 
the figure of the lungs. The chest is naturally broad at the 
base, becoming narrower at the top—a cone-shaped structure. 
Women make it narrow where it should be broad, and broader 
at the apex, where it was originally narrow. 


Inflation of Air-Cells. 

The lowest air-cells of the lobes cannot expand when air is 
inhaled, while those in the upper region of the lungs are pre- 
tematurally put upon the stretch, in order to provide surface 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


59 


for the creation of blood. One end of each lung is compelled 
to do more towards maintaining life than it was organized to 
do, while the lower part is prevented from giving much more 
than a feeble degree of assistance. 

Favored, as many robust women are, with a fine organization 
in other respects, they can live out a long life in comparative 
health and comfort; but they are few compared to the vast 
number who fall short and die before they have attained all 
they might have had on earth. 

The first or topmost rib on either side, just under the collar¬ 
bone, is short, thin, and shai-p on its inner curvature. It has 
no motion, being a brace between the dorsal column and the 
breast-bone. It is immovable for the purpose of protecting 
large arteries and veins belonging to the arms on either side of 
the neck. Such is the construction within the horizontal arch 
of that rib, the upper portion of the lungs rise up through the 
space above the level of the bone. In cases where the chest 
has been manipulated till the lungs cannot expand downwards, 
they are forced up above that rib. Rising and falling above 
and below that rib-level, the lobe chafes and frets against the 
resisting curvature. It is inflamed at last, and the organ becomes 
diseased. If that chafing is not relieved, but in each respiration 
the serous covering of the lung is irritated continually, the 
infiammation is apt to extend quite into the body of the organ, 
increased and intensified by exciting emotions, laborious pur¬ 
suits, or unfavorable exposures. Finally, the mucous lining of 
tbe air-cells within the lung sympathizes and becomes inflamed 
also. 


Commencement of Consumption. 

In this condition we may trace the commencement of pul¬ 
monary consumption. It would be denominated sporadic, and 


60 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


widely different from pulmonary disease by inheritance. But 
the possibility of deranging the function of the lungs by simjffy 
distorting the chest, cannot be doubted, nor would any anatomist 
presume to say such treatment does not do violence to those 
much-abused, delicately-constructed organs. Being forced from 
their normal place in the pleural cavities, is dangerous in the 
extreme. 

Consumption is not only developed by tight lacing, but a 
multiplication of cases, where the original conformation of the 
individual was favorable for a comparatively long life, is beyond 
question. Medications cannot stay the onward march of dis¬ 
organization, when ulcerations eat the tissues. Once destroyed, 
they can never be reproduced. Therefore, if prevention is 
better than cure, less expensive and always more agreeable, why 
not profit by these suggestions ? 

No compression of the base of the chests of men being 
induced by tight dressing, a chafing of the upper surface of the 
lungs rarely occurs with them. If, by constant effort to dis¬ 
tend the lungs, the lobes extend where there is the least resist¬ 
ance, the tissues covering the space between the inner curve of 
the superior rib and cervical vertebrae gradually relax, and are 
convexed upwardly at each breath. This, therefore, explains the 
mechanical results of thoracic compression, and women, as a 
matter of course, are the most frequent subjects of a diseased 
condition of the lungs from that cause. 

Unheeded Advice, 

In a blaze of hygienic light, admonitions of the medical pro¬ 
fession are unheeded, and death and stays act in unison, deci¬ 
mating the fairest flowers of intellectual womanhood. A warn¬ 
ing voice is lost in the distance when it refers to this subject. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


61 


'Not one mother in a thonsand doubts the trntli of wliat phy¬ 
sicians proclaim in respect to this painful invasion of the chest, 
yet she continues the practice. 

Great men, giants in any department of busy life—those 
who make the world conscious of their influence—those who 
quicken thought or revolutionize public sentiment, and leave 
the impress of their genius in the history of the age in which 
they flourished, were not the sons of gaunt mothers whose 
waists resembled the middle of an hour-glass. 

Tkansmission of Defects. 

Mothers certainly transmit their own physical, if not their 
moral and other qualities to their children. A feeble organiza¬ 
tion is perpetuated through successive generations, terminating 
at last in the extinction of a family, unless there is a revivifica¬ 
tion of vital force by an intermixture of a healthy stock. 

Intermarrying among relations, with a view to a selfish pur¬ 
pose of keeping estates always within the same control, or from 
a spirit of pride that looks with contempt on alliances with 
other blood as contamination, cannot be sustained. There 
must be crossings, and an infusion of new elements. Utter 
extinction of a family may safely be predicted that tolerates no 
afiinity with other blood. 

ISTature asserts the law, and, if not respected, a race cannot 
conceal its deterioration. A feeble intellect, supported by an 
imperfectly developed body, is a notification of a sovereign 
decree—the disappearance of a family—only to be saved by the 
formation of new relations with those who have vitality if they 
have not property. 


62 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


• Pkedisposition to Maladies. 

Competent medical authority has decided that a predis¬ 
position to certain maladies are transmissible from parents 
to children. Seeds of disease may remain quiescent many 
years, and then suddenly burst out into destructive activity. 
Changes of weather, variations of temperature, when an 
individual in whom they may exist is exposed, together 
with the peculiar susceptibility of such persons, produce 
slight inflammatory turgescence of the mucous membrane of 
the throat, which, creeping down to the interior of the air 
cells- of the lungs, assumes a very grave aspect. 

The next phase in the progress of incipient pulmonary 
derangement is a cough. Purulent matter is excreted over 
the bronchial mucous lining of the air-tubes, to defend them 
from irritation from the direct contact of air on the inflamed 
mucous membrane. Violence in the attempt to raise that 
matter, which, of itself,* is another source of aggravation, 
from its weight,—the thin ‘partitions of the cells are often 
ruptured by spasmodic paroxysms of coughing. If not re¬ 
moved, the accumulation, remaining in a mass, ulcerates the 
membranes, and pus gravitates downwards. Abscesses are 
formed. Thus the integrity of the whole lobe is involved. 

Emaciations, in consequence of organic derangement and 
imperfect oxygenation of the blood, is the result. Debility 
marks the onward destructive progress of ulceration. ISTeither 
tonics, the modiflcation of diet, or a change of climate, can 
arrest the further destruction that must inevitably terminate 
in death, when the mechanism by which respiration is con¬ 
ducted is destroyed. 

This is a mechanical delineation of the phenomena of 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


63 


induced pulmonary disease, by violations of the laws of health. 
Dress, where it interferes with a perfect expansion of the 
lungs, certainly tends to the shortening of life. 

Not Curable. 

Pulmonary consumption, in the form here described, can¬ 
not be cured; nor can it be much relieved. How absurd 
then, on the face of it, to fill the stomach with drugs, with 
an expectation of regenerating parts that have been completely 
destroyed. Nostrum-venders thrive by the sale of consump¬ 
tion-remedies, but they are the only persons benefited by their 
falsely-represented panaceas. 

Further Interviewing oe Stats. 

Women are not expected to lay them aside. While it 
is universally admitted by them that their taste is superior 
to nature, stay and corset-making will be a profitable branch 
of manufacturing business in coming years. 

Why do not boys require such appliances? Without 
them, left to themselves, they grow up with full, rounded 
chests, and their proportions are admirable. Pare examples 
of feminine, beardless exquisites in stays are known at 
fashionable places, the straws on the ripples of society, but 
they are invariably regarded as brainless butterflies who are 
neither men in character nor women in form. 

Criticisms on female dress are not the outpourings of 
an envious spirit, when they emanate from professional 
writers. Life is a boon so precious, they fain would per¬ 
suade women to preserve it, and not sacrifice it to the 
caprice of fashion. 


64 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


How THEIR Dresses Should be Worn. 

Were all their large garments suspended from the 
shoulders, the consequences resulting from confining them 
round the waist with the grip of a boa constrictor would 
be obviated. 

In addition to the close-lacing of stays, each lower garment 
is bound tightly on, over the same region, to keep them 
up. This is all wrong. Closely-pinned waists of petticoats, 
bands, belts, and buckled ribbons, girdles, or straps, posi¬ 
tively stand with firm resistance to the development of the 
base of the chest. So it is perfectly clear without a labored 
dissertation, that the mischief habitually practised to the 
positive injury of the whole internal economy of the female 
body, might be avoided by simply suspending garments from 
the shoulders. 

Yery young children are thus dressed, a mode only to be 
abandoned before the bones of the chest begin to ossify at 
their distal extremities. Moral and* mental circumstances in 
a little girl’s every-day life are overlooked, comparatively, 
in the effort to improve their forms. 

Of the amount of disturbance produced in the basin of the 
pelvis by constantly tying on garments, a detailed description is 
given in the lecture-room where- diseases of women are ex¬ 
plained. It is difficult to popularize the subject, and that is one 
of the reasons no more progress has been made in revolution¬ 
izing their costume. If a cord were daily wound around the 
body just above the hips, the bowels would be forced down¬ 
wards, interfering with another set of organs. That is the 
true cause of a painful catalogue of maladies to ■which women 
are incident. Displacements cannot be infficted without 
suffering and real danger. Multitudes of females reach an 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


65 


advanced age who have survived the misfortunes entailed 
upon those who possessed less tenacity of life, from being 
subjected to the ligating discipline 6f the waist. But that 
is no valid reason for continuing a practice so destructive in 
its tendencies. 


Proof by Analogy. 

Some men escape injury in severe battles, where the 
ground is strewn with the dead and the dying. Is that a 
proof that others might escape also, exposed to showers of 
flying balls? Where one woman, apparently, has had no 
inconvenience from a diminished waist, more than one hun¬ 
dred have died. 

The weight of heavy clothing suspended from the shoul¬ 
ders is not as burdensome as when suspended from above 
the hips. ' Still, with that fact before them, ladies have made 
no alteration in their mode of dressing. It is a favorite way 
of demonstrating the looseness of their garments about the 
waist, that their fingers can be pushed under their belt. 

That is quite possible, but the extreme ligation is in the 
girded skirts that are worn, pinned, or buttoned as closely as 
they can be drawn. 

Brigades of physicians thrive professionally, because women 
persist in making themselves sick. Specialists find their com¬ 
plaints a profitable field for culture. Female doctors, too, 
have not been unmindful of the advantage they possess in gain¬ 
ing the confidence of their own sex, by turning their folly to 
good pecuniary account. 

Oriental females keep their garments in place by a scarf or 
shawl, according to their means. Their trowsers, immensely 
large, soft and pliable, are easy for the limbs, and graceful in 

5 


66 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


appearance. They, however, are by no means exempt from 
contingencies which belong to girding the waist. Although 
i)retty severely ligated, they are not injured in the same way 
that civilized women suffer. If they were as energetically in¬ 
dustrious, they would be equally exposed. Their habitual in¬ 
dolence, especially the higher classes of ladies, the stars of the 
harem, is favorable for them. They have no chairs, but recline 
on elastic cushions. Were they obliged to exert themselves in 
lifting or carrying heavy children in their arms, they could not 
escape those mechanical displacements which are intimated, 
without being specifically described in these observations. 

With them, their scarfs are not quite as terrible as stays. 
Instead of compressing the base of the chest, Turkish ladies 
make the ligation lower. They spare the lungs, but in stooping 
or rising suddenly, they are frequently ruptured. The bowels 
are forced to a point of least resistance,—the groins, where her¬ 
nial protrusions are common. 


Hernial Protrusions, how Produced. 

Greek women have more freedom; and engaging in domestic 
pursuits of all kinds, in consequence of keeping their clothing 
together, precisely as their Turkish sisters do, they are exten¬ 
sively and badly mptured. Perhaps no country in the world 
furnishes an equal number of ruptured women.' 

Women are subject to indispositions peculiar to their organ¬ 
izations, which may be made worse by neglect, or perpetuated 
by continued violence, however gradually infiicted. On the 
whole, leaving Mature to herself, the sexes possess equal advan¬ 
tages for health and longevity. 


JAPANESE LADT. WOMEN OF THE HAREM 






























































































































































































































































































































































































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THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


67 


Simplicity in Dress Security por Health. 

Permit little girls to pass their youth untrammelled by gar¬ 
ments that would either compress, or in the least degree inter¬ 
fere with the chest or abdomen. 

Distortions of the pelvis would be avoided by providing 
suitable seats at school, and also at home. IsTo bone can be 
pressed out of line without interfering with some function that 
sooner or later may be a source of suffering or sickness. 

While learning to write, their positions should be frequently 
varied. If they habitually sit in the same place, taking the 
same posture, there is danger of swaying one shoulder or warp¬ 
ing it to one side. Young girls are more prone to have their 
shoulders distorted than boys. The latter are nervously using 
aU their muscles, especially those of the arms, which secure* 
symmetry to their shoulders. Girls are restrained from playing 
ball, climbing tree^ or engaging in exercises that force the 
muscles of the spine to extra action. If girls are left too long 
at the desk, one set of muscles relax, while the other set are 
kept too long contracted, inducing weariness. Curvatures of 
the spine have their origin in not sufficiently varying the pos¬ 
tures they fall into by occupying the same seat, the same desk, 
or receiving light from the same direction always. 

Where a scrofulous habit exists, there should be even greater 
caution in varying the position often. Harrow chests, a breast¬ 
bone pressed inwardly at its lower end—two sad conditions— 
may be avoided by the simple process of having the books on a • 
high desk, which would compel the pupil to sit up straight. 

With these statements and recapitulations of what parents 
and instructors should do to secure the health, vigor, and beauty 
of young girls, it is not pretended that perfect success will 
crown their efforts. Some of the most faultless in form die 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


prematurely; but that they are wronged out of vitality they ' 
might have had, treated as boys are, in respect to clothing and 
out-door exercise, is mournfully true and lamentable.* 


* In those parte of France in which stays have been laid aside as injurious, 
it is stated the mortality of females has decreased eighteen and a-half per 
cent. According to the same authority, chignons increased cerebral fevers 
seventy-two per cent. 



CHAPTEK VIII. 

Exeecise of WoMEiq-. 

Feet were intended for nse, yet there are women quite un¬ 
willing to exercise them in any other way than dancing. Some 
scarcely feel able to walk from a dressing-room to a dinner- 
table after completing an elaborate toilet. Elegant idleness 
cannot be. persuaded that it is not vulgar to move about on 
one’s feet. Airing in a carriage is genteel and without 
fatigue. 

Anybody can walk who is not a cripple, but all cannot ride. 
It is charming to take a pleasant drive, provided the weather is 
perfectly agreeable. Greeting choice friends from the windows 
of a splendid coach, in passing, is infinitely superior to plodding 
along on foot at the risk of rude contact with disagreeable 
people ignorant of the rules of good breeding. 

An apprehension of damp feet by touching mother earth, is 
a common excuse for not promenading like those who never 
owned an equipage. The susceptibility to cold is quite surpris¬ 
ing with some ladies who could once trip through the wet grass 
when they resided in their country homes with impunity. 
Moonbeams become too ponderous for their fragile nerves since 
coming to the city and into the magic circle of fashionable 
exactions. 

There are occasions, notwithstanding such acquired delicacy 
as passes for an unequivocal sign of social elevation, when even 
such zephyr-like humanity rises in the dignity of heroic resolu¬ 
tion, to mingle with the world in crowded assemblies, waltz all 


70 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


niglit for charitable purposes, retiring at daylight the following 
morning, satisfied with themselves in having discharged a relig¬ 
ious duty. 

If it is too fatiguing to trudge on foot like servants, how 
much more* to ascend long flights of stairs, unless they lead to 
the exquisitely furnished apartments of a friend. In their own 
dwellings they are not unfrequently carried in a chair or borne 
in the coachman’s brawny arms from the doorstep to a carriage. 

Extreme Delicacy. 

It kills some ladies, in court language, to exercise in any 
ordinary manner. This is a common complaint of very sensi¬ 
tive beings who were once chambermaids or milliners. To 
appear perfectly well is to acknowledge themselves rather ple¬ 
beian. In their early days, glowing with freshness, vigor, and 
the best elements of a sound constitution, it was the good for¬ 
tune of many who now converse most about remedies to have 
captivated a prosperous groceryman, a thrifty tailor, or the rich 
son of a retired leather-dealer, who was accepted as a lesser evil 
than remaining at service. Exchanging a cot in the garret to 
become mistress of an elegant establishment on an avenue, is 
not to be despised. Their husbands pursue the tenor of their 
ways, multiplying goods and chattels, and becoming million¬ 
aires, while their wives develop into model patients, patrons of 
music, the drama, art, select dinners, the opera, and tract-distri¬ 
butions to the poor. 

Before marriage thus advantageously secured, every close 
observer has known spirited young wives who could once run 
from the basement to the skylight without complaining. Now 
cologne out of a phial would not revive their exhausted spirits. 
A few years of technical luxury, surrounded and enveloped in 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


71 * 


comforts and elegancies to which they were unaccustomed in 
the elastic days of youth, they decline to an abyss of chronic 
indolence. 

Must Exercise Ereelt. 

The less we use ourselves, the more rapidly we deteriorate. 
When muscles remain inactive, they lose their tonicity. They 
cannot he strengthened by taking drugs, but by proper exercise. 
Pedestrians derive advantages from facing the breezes, and 
communing with nature in the open highway, which the occu¬ 
pant of a carriage does not receive so advantageously. Her 
locomotive cordage is at rest while riding. The walker puts all 
the contracted fibres of his body in motion at the same moment, 
and, therefore, every organ feels the impulse, and is benefited 
accordingly, because there is an increased activity in the circu¬ 
lation and the secretions and exhalant vessels. 

Ho form of exercise has been pursued which is productive 
of health-giving vigor, to be compared with habitual prome¬ 
nading on foot, regardless of weather or season. 

If men delight and enjoy pleasant walks, why should not 
women ? Alternately balancing the weight of the body on 
one foot and then on the other, brings every muscle to its full 
bearing. Each one of them has an antagonist, and thus 
tension and relaxation create a demand for nutrition, propor¬ 
tioned to the force they may be called upon to exert. An 
appetite is created to meet the wants of each and every 
tissue ; and in providing for a hungry stomach, we simply feed 
each one of those muscular threads which assisted us in 
stepping off briskly. 

Without appetite, strength fails, temperature diminishes— 
the extremities being cold—and direct debility is the next 
condition. Every limb, or section of one,- may have its form 


72 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


increased simply by exercising it. Insufficient food reduces 
vital force.* 

Bearing burdens, bauling ropes, working at a pump-handle, 
lifting kettles from a range, swinging a broom, etc., gives the 
female cook beautifully rounded arms, the envy of her mis¬ 
tress, whose bony apologies for arms cannot be made attractive, 
even encased in diamond bracelets. Dancing develops the 
lower limbs. Biding on horseback brings out the full propor¬ 
tions of the chest and abdomen, but does not round up the 
muscles of the legs like walking. Ladies do not reap as much 
benefit from that exercise as men; because only one limb has 
opportunity for bracing, while the former press equally on 
the stirrup with both feet. 

BText to walking, a bracing morning-ride on horseback is 
incomparably superior to an airing in a carriage. Efforts are 
unconsciously made on the saddle in maintaining a perpen¬ 
dicular position. That js what calls out an extra effort of the 
muscles, and henco they increase in size and power. When 
a lady drives out for the purpose of refreshing her debilitated 
system, simply inhaling the fresh air does not accomplish for 
her all that an uncontaminated atmosphere certainly would do, 
were her muscles set in active motion at the same time. 

As boat-rowing is wonderfully conducive to a broad, 
rounded chest, we are surprised that it has not been urged 
upon narrow-chested, feeble, consumptively-inclined young 
ladies.' They would realize all the sanitary advantages from 
an elegant and extremely popular gymnastic exercise, that 


* Four of tlie wealtliiest gentlemen in tlie city of New York, dis¬ 
tinguished for their millions, dined together the last Sabbath of June, 1871. 
They were famishing for want of appetite. The rich viands were scarcely 
tasted. If each lived on sixpence a day, and earned it by labor, they would 
not have complained of want of appetite. 



THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Y3 


tliose do who figure in clubs and rowing-matches. They 
present the finest-formed chests and the best breathing 
apparatus of any class of men. 

A hint might be taken from the pursuits of professional 
bargemen. They have prodigiously large, fully-developed 
chests. Diseased lungs in their calling must.be rare. With 
these views, the result of carefully surveying the tendency to 
invigorate the pectoral muscles and expand the thorax by 
handling oars, we strongly recommend boating for ladies of 
the description referred to in these observations on exercise. 
They might count upon having splendidly-rounded arms by 
that graceful amusement, and improved chests, if they would 
be sure to remove their stays before seating themselves at the 
rowlocks. 

A side-saddle is very well, as far as it goes ; but inferior to 
the man-saddle, inasmuch as the bracing is made exclusively 
by one foot, as already mentioned. 


Nutrition. 

Nutrition of the body is a very interesting subject, not 
generally understood, although a very frequent topic of con¬ 
versation among those knowing the least about it. How few 
comprehend the phenomena of digestion. When food falls 
into the stomach, it,is lost sight o^in the ordinary way of 
speaking. At that point a series of vital activities and changes 
commences, that have given rise to researches of peculiar 
interest. 

While an animal is growing, it is taken for granted that 
food furnishes materials for completing that process. When 
full proportions are attained, the body is apparently stationary; 
but, by eating and drinking, materials are furnished for keep- 


74 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


ing it in repair. A waste all the while is going on. If that 
daily wear and tear were not met by a new supply, there 
would be immediate loss of weight and immediate debility. 

Now comes into view the economy of nature, by which 
appropriate elements are elaborated from food in that mem¬ 
braneous bag—the stomach—which are floated along in tubes 
to places where new matter is required to take the place of old 
substance which has just been removed. 

Arteries may be compared to canals, through the aid of 
which freighted boats carry every imaginable product of the 
country for meeting the necessities of the people. 

Blood runs through these vessels, in which there is held in 
solution whatever is required—such as lime, glue, phosphorus, 
etc., too numerous to mention—which is carried to the re¬ 
motest fibre, where each takes up what it needs, and no more; 
and wliatever remains, after being thus selected from, passes 
on to other stations, where, freight is discharged, according to 
the demands of the body. 

The mechanical part of digestion is simply this. After 
being reduced to a greyish pulp in the stomach, by being mixed 
with a variety of products which have their origin in glands, 
food gradually enters the intestinal canal, a thin, strong, curi¬ 
ously constructed tube, about six times the length of the indi¬ 
vidual. In childhood it is nearly eight times the length of the 
body. 

Lacteal Vessels. 

From the descending mass of food urged through the intes¬ 
tinal tube by its contractions from above, a milky fluid is 
formed called chyle. On the inner surface of the long tube 
are millions of minute openings of hair-like tubes which ter¬ 
minate in fleshy masses of different sizes, lying between the 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


75 


duplication of mesentery. Those little orifices suck up the 
chyle as it passes by, and convey it to the mesenteric glands. 
It remains in them but a short time, when it goes out through 
another set of minute tubes on the opposite side of the gland, to 
be conveyed to a small white tube lying in contact with the 
back-bone, known as the thoraciG duct. In its exit from the 
gland, probably something is added, or some chemical alteration 
takes place that improves its quality. 

The thoracic duct ascends by the side of the vertebrae, not 
much larger than a wheat-straw, till it reaches the root of the 
neck, where it curves and enters the jugular vein of the left 
side. 

How THE Blood is Pkodhced feom Food. 

At the angle, the white fluid produced in the bowels, the 
essence of food, as it were, mingles with venous blood. The 
current of blood and chyle mingling runs across the top of the 
chest just back of the breast-bone, and empties into the right 
auricle or upper chamber of the heart. 

As soon as that apartment is full, the walls contract and 
force the contents through a round opening into the next cav¬ 
ity, the ventricle,' which contracts and drives the fluid onward 
through the pulmonary artery into the lungs. That great ves¬ 
sel subdivides in the substance of the lungs, inflnitely, into fine 
branching vessels, where each air-cell receives a twig that 
spreads around it like net-work. 

Air is next inhaled, inflating those cells, and in the act of 
inflation, the oxygen of the atmosphere comes in contact with 
the newly arrived fluid, spread like a fllm around the cell. At 
the same moment, carbonic acid is thrown ofl. The imbiba- 
tion of oxygen changes the mixture of old and new blood— 
which arrived together, as described in the jugular, into a rich 


76 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


scarlet color. It is then a vitalized fluid, arterial blood, and 
ready for general distribution by the contractile energy of the 
left side of the heart. 

Eflete matter, that which remained in the system till it had 
imparted all its serviceable properties, is evacuated. Thus an 
explanation of the reason for eating and drinking is made plain 
enough for the comprehension of a child. ^ 

OuT-DOOR Exercises. 

Exercise accompanied by pleasurable emotions, as from the 
view of verdant fields, mountain scenery, flowers, or refined 
social intercourse, is eminently calculated to sustain and im¬ 
prove our health. It should be encouraged by those having 
the care of children. Public teachers should give it their 
approval. In all institutions, educational especially, frequent 
opportunities should be given pupils for free out-door contact 
with the air, regardless of the season. Air was designed for 
breathing. Those who have the privilege of being exposed to 
it most, will appreciate its sanitary value. 

Laborers have a compensation for their toil beyond a pay¬ 
ment in money, in the sound condition of their bodies. They 
are not always under the doctor’s care. They have no fear of 
an east wind, the dampness of a napkin, a hard-boiled egg. 
They neither have dyspepsia or go to the White Sulphur Springs 
on account of ailments generated by idleness. Women above 
industry, gently driven in a close coach, lest a ray of light 
.should imprint a bronze hue on their pallid cheeks, envy the mar¬ 
ket woman, strong, hearty, and well, unconcerned about the 
shade of silk, or the lace trimmings to be worn at the next opera. 
Being used and not used, are very different conditions. Hot 
only health, but even the length of the thread of life are deter- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


77 


mined by tbe use or the neglect of onr various powers. Pur¬ 
suits which put the long muscles, as those of the back, chest, 
abdomen, and extremities into frequent action, are most con¬ 
ducive to continued good health. 

Having particularized the benefits to be realized from horse¬ 
back exercise, it will be found that those on foot gain more than 
riders. They are longer-lived, and are freer from attacks of 
disease, either acute or chronic. 

Peasants in Europe, and females of the humble orders in 
Oriental countries,' who carry heavy jars of water on their heads, 
make no complaint. Each and every muscle is brought into a 
taste of tension in the act of balancing burdens thus transported. 
They are exempt from spinal difficulties, being subject neither 
to dropsical effusions, spinal irritation, incurvations or caries of 
their bones. 

Kemedying Distortions. 

An orthopedic institution, which copies the Hilotic water- 
girls, requiring fragile female patients to support weights in the 
same manner, instead of requiring them to pass hours on an in¬ 
clined plane, and the remainder of the day to be imprisoned in 
stiff, unyielding apparatus, would succeed far more satisfactorily 
than in the old way of going counter to the best indications of 
Hature. A weight on the head would immediately call into 
play the dorsal muscles, which would increase in volume and 
strength with repetitions. Strapping frail, slender, imperfectly- 
developed girls, as commonly practised, to boards, a hard bed, 
or lacing them in metallic corslets, with an expectation that a 
distortion is to be overcome by it, is entirely wrong. Gradually 
bringing into use neglected apparatus, as muscles of the back, 
chest, arms, etc., and with appropriate attention to diet, relief 
may be reasonably expected. Tonics will not give the wished- 
for relief, unaccompanied by exercise. 


78 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Young ladies of a lymphatic temperament, not disposed to 
exert themselves beyond what may be perfectly agreeable, who 
delight in lounging away the precious hours of opening life on 
elastic couches, or languishingly reclining in a luxurious coach, 
for an occasional airing, when the weather is unexceptionably fine, 
receive but little advantage from scientific treatment, when dis¬ 
torted, simply on account of the extreme tenderness with which 
institutions treat them. 

Scrofulous, sallow, indolent, lachrymose, sentimental ladies, 
whose circumstances are ample enough to 'warrant them in 
gently descending to the grave in all the pomp and circumstance 
of fashion, would not submit to such manipulations as might 
turn the shadow a few degrees back on the dial of life. 

Social Phases. 

Condition modifies circumstances. Some are unhappy be¬ 
cause they cannot compass unreasonable projects; and others 
complain of being wretched on account of neglected claims to 
social position. A disgust of life is not an unfrequent apology 
for suicidal acts, which are charitably imputed to derangement 
of mind consequent upon ill-health. There may be a form of 
mental depression that so lowers the vital mercury as to make it 
appear easier to die than live in neglect or hopeless uncertainty 
of ever being ap;qreciated. 

There is another order of female despondents who are 
socially miserable by mistake, entertaining an idea they have 
not all an ungrateful world ought to give them, while they are 
revelling in the midst of phantoms and vanities. In a moment 
of desperation they swallow a dose of opium and slumber into 
eternity. This is a woman’s way in distraction. Men blow out 
their brains with a revolver, or with a razor tap their jugulars. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


79 


Ladies in poor health, who cannot he miraculously relieved 
—the broken-hearted from unrequited love, victims of dissipa¬ 
tion and the ignorant, who conceive themselves of more im¬ 
portance than others admit, those who are always trying new 
remedies from irresponsible sources, certified to by persons 
whose word is worth no more than their bond, those who con¬ 
sult quacks, have the blue devils, and refuse to he comforted, 
and require watching, there being a suicidal tendency—would 
each and all of them receive permanent relief from regular 
employment, coarse nutritious food, and daily walks that would 
invite sleep from fatigue, instead of taking medicine or consult¬ 
ing clairvoyants. 

Women of Enekgy. 

Hardy, resolute, energetic women, who rarely ride, re¬ 
quire no medical assistance, mineral water, or soothing com¬ 
positions. It is so common and perfectly genteel to he most of 
the time an invalid, that it operates very unfavorably for the 
prospects of those who imagine it gives them an interesting 
appearance in the estimation of sensible men. They are unwil¬ 
ling to open a private hospital in entering upon the responsi¬ 
bilities of matrimony. 

Robust, clear-complexioned women are not usually natives 
of cities. Those who have the true elements of that kind of 
womanhood which will best sustain them in city life, are trans¬ 
ferred from the country. They bring with them a stock of 
vitality which resists the effects of a vitiated atmosphere and 
the debilitations of luxury, rather longer than those “to the 
manor bom.” 

But warm apartments, coal fires, gas lights, late hours, rich 
food, strong coffee, and the pride of wealth, wear upon them 
after awhile. Women in health are the hope of a nation. Men 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN 


80 • 

who exercise a controlling influence—the master spirits—with 
a few exceptions, have had country-born mothers. They trans¬ 
mit to their sons tho^e traits of character—moral, intellectual, 
and physical—which give stability to institutions and promote 
order, security, and justice. When there have been remarkable 
deviations from this law of descent, the mothers of city nota¬ 
bilities, in whom talent has been the lever of eminent success, 
had opportunities for alternating between town and the life- 
bestowing country. 

City-born women, afi'ected by morbid desires and corporeal 
deterioration, jealously reared within those centres of exclusive¬ 
ness which know neither merit, accomplishments, nor respect¬ 
ability, not supported on all sides by golden props, cannot boast 
of the superiority of their children. An influx of pure blood 
from the country, to replenish languid fountains in cities, is 
the salvation of a family. 

From whence came those ladies who are pillars in the temple 
of Christian benevolence? From whence come the men of 
mark in these United States? From the country. I^’one of 
them were bom in a brown-stone palace. Such structures were 
erected by enterprising capitalists who commenced their career 
in market stalls, jobbing shops, before the mast, or possibly in 
an oyster house. A widow’s son, or an orphan boy, who left 
his village home in search of employment, are those who build 
cities, control commerce, erect factories, sustain themselves in 
places of honor, and are a credit to the age. 


Developing a Sound Female Constitution. 

A decided way for receiving a permanent benefit from 
mineral springs, is to visit them on foot, without reference to 
distance. Those who might receive some advantage from 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


81 


reputed medicinal waters, are generally unable, from want of 
means, to remain, were they to reach them. Physicians assure 
us that poor women have fewer complaints requiring profes¬ 
sional treatment, than those who are exempt from constant toil. 
They have occasional chronic ailments, and suffer from inci¬ 
dental exposures and accidents; but more women in comfortable 
circumstances are sick than might be expected, as an impression 
is entertained that domestic comforts are safeguards against 
indisposition. How much of it is to be charged to perverse 
habits, excesses at table, and a derangement of the system from 
having too much assistance in doing what they should have 
done for themselves, may be found in the widtings of plain- 
spoken physicians. 

Allow young girls free, open, out-door exercise in their pas¬ 
times and romping frolics, according to their disposition for 
such active gambols. Give them good, plain food, especially 
milk, fresh vegetables, and fruits of all kinds, in unstinted 
abundance. Do not limit their appetites. When they have 
had what their bodies require, they have had enough, but not 
before. In loose garments and opportunity for putting in play, 
all their muscles, they exhaust their pent-up accumulation of 
animal spirit, which, if restrained by hackneyed old maxims,— 
that it is unladylike to be frank, spirited, and alive, they will 
degenerate into dawdling nonentities, who may have the forms 
of angels without their attributes. 

Permit young girls, without reference to their age, to run 
through fields, climb over fences, swing under the trees, gather 
nuts in the forest, and pick berries in pastures, if they incline 
to do so. If they racket through the hall, overturn chairs or 
break broom-handles, in their innocent sports, they are laying a 
sure foundation for health, elegant figures, blooming cheeks, 

and brilliant intellects. That is the way nature proposes tc 

6 


82 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


fasliion lovely woman. It is a course of discipline wliicli brings 
out in rich perfection graces that no treasure could purchase. 

Exercise wliicli results from the pursuance of some kind of 
industry, above all, should be warmly encouraged, as being 
most conducive to the health of body and mind. A door that 
is always closed will have rusty hinges, and creak when opened. 
Indolence is an enemy to felicity. Keep busy, therefore. A 
wise mother will find employment for her daughters. If they 
are idle, then they will be unhappy. 

Were our limbs rarely set in motion, they would become 
thin and feeble. The skater’s legs increase in size by the 
service imposed upon them. If the brain were not employed, 
poverty of thought would expose the neglect of that organ in 
exhibitions of ignorance. Decay follows neglect, and neglected 
opportunities cannot be retrieved. Every faculty must be 
exercised, if possible. Eftbrt becomes a pleasure. Progress 
and prosperity liave no intimate connection with pain or 
misery. Great thinkers, like fieet horses, must be kept in 
constant training. Great things are not achieved by main 
strength. Occupation is one of the first elements of happiness. 
As it is a woman’s mission to smooth the rough ways of the 
world by the influence of her character, the power she wields 
is strong or weak, according to the culture she has received. 

Commence seasonably, then, with young girls, by allowing 
them all possible freedom, not inconsistent with purity of 
heart. The best gymnastic school for them is all over the 
premises; and when their bodies have taken the form nature 
contemplated in their organization—which is always beautiful 
—then teach them whatever may be requisite for sustaining 
themselves with propriety, dignity, and honor, in all the social 
relations to which they may be called. 


CHAPTER IX. 

Nervous System of Womeit. 

Different Nerves—Their Functions—Anatomically alike in both Sexes—Old 
Children Nursed by Men—Arrest of Pulmonary Consumption by 

Lactation—Too Much Restraint—Exercise Essential. 

Familiar as medical gentlemen suppose themselves with 
the structure of the body, a woman’s instincts, and the laws 
which govern her nervous system, are still veiled in mystery, 
which the acuteness of physiological research has not cleared 
from obscurities. Assumptions are not demonstrations. The 
curtain must be raised higher before we can explain phenomena 
which belong exclusively to female life. 

Considered as an animal, man is not affected by revolutions 
of the sun, the moon, or planets, nor have conjunctions had 
any influence over his organizj^tion. 

In women, on the contrary, there are periodical changes 
occurring with an orderly regularity which popular opinion sup¬ 
poses is wholly due to an influence of the moon, far off as 
it is. Before science had that ascendency it now has, there were 
such precise and inexplicable functions performed from puberty 
to about the fiftieth year, it was natural enough to suppose a 
power in the sky that made the tide rise and fall twice in 
twenty-four hours, also moved fluids, wherever they were, pro¬ 
portioned to the volume upon which the lunar influence was 
exerted. 

Whether the nervous matter is fluid or solid, within the 
sheaths called nerves, is not satisfactorily settled. Those 


84 


tHe ways of women. 


flexible white cords, from the size of a pipe-stem to filaments 
too attenuated to be seen without a magnifier, and which reach 
every fibre, being the telegraphic wires through which volitions 
are sent from the brain, and through which sensations from 
'vy'ithout are forwarded to the soul, have their origin within the 
head and upper part of tlie spinal marrow. 

The Brain. 

!N^erve-cords are precisely alike in both sexes, have the 
same relative locations, and sustain the same ofiice. A nerve 
in a female arm in no way differs in composition or in function 
from a similar one in a male arm ; yet the brain of a woman 
differs from a man’s, not in composition, nor in the proportions 
the white bears to the gray matter, so far as we can discover, 
but in its manifestations. There is a difference between the 
two, not at all easy of explanation. Side by side, detached 
from the skulls, it would be impossible to decide which was 
the male, or which the female brain. 

Education is simply a development of the faculties; and 
when the process is conducted precisely alike for both sexes, 
there are manifestations totally different, which have their 
origin from impressions made exactly from the same sources. 
Therefore, there is a constitutional endowment: the why or the 
wherefore our philosophy fails to explain. "Woman’s instincts 
differ very widely from man’s. She is naturally more reserved, 
more moral, and more sympathetic. Their thoughts, their 
dreams, and the activity of their imaginations, are certainly 
influenced by the same agencies which leave impressions on a 
man’s mind; still she has neither the instincts nor the charac¬ 
teristic impulses of man in the concerns of ordinary life. 

Whether the moon, the planet ISTeptune, the.seven stars, or 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


85 


tlie whole combined, govern the fluids in a woman’s body, or 
unite their forces with those of the heart, it would not be wise 
to discuss. Certain it is, physiology has further room for 
explanation where there is both darkness and guessing, rather 
than light, in regard to the nervous system of women. 

The structure and nervous expansion of slender twigs set 
the microscope at defiance. Their extreme minuteness cannot 
be followed, and, therefore, we must acknowledge our inability 
to pursue them. 


Curiosities of Life. 

When the age of child-bearing is past, the milk ducts 
shrink and almost wholly disappear; but they may be revivi¬ 
fied by simply manipulating the nipple occasionally a few days. 
The increase of blQod is directed to the partially obliterated 
breasts, and the erectile tissue receives an increased influx of 
nervous exaltation. By allowing a nursing babe to draw upon 
the dried-up fountains, the functions of these organs, as in the 
vigor of youth, will be reestablished. Should the powers of 
nursing be reneAved and continued at regular intervals a few days, 
millc will be secreted abundantly. Children have actually been 
nursed in this manner by aged women, who were fully restored, 
in that particular, to the prominent conditions of maternity. 

It will be conceded, therefore, that there are mysteries per¬ 
vading the female system, when such phenomena are presented. 
Thus, through the reflex influence of Extremely minute thoracic 
nerves, a lost function may be reestablished. Glands which 
have been dormant for years—the sleep of old age—yield nour¬ 
ishment abounding in elements which are the appropriate food 
of an infant, out of which its solid body is built up in health, 
strength, and beautiful proportions. 

Medical books furnish the case of a poor Italian who posi- 


86 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


tivelj nursed liis own infant seven months, on milk secreted in 
his own breast. For the purpose of quieting the starving 
babe, 'whose mother had just died, the afflicted father, unable 
to provide a nurse for the wailing infant, allowed it to nestle at 
his flat, hard bosom, which was instinctive on the part of the 
little famishing suflerer, where, finding a rudimental nipple, it 
was permitted to draw upon it without interruption. It quieted 
tlie screaming motherless babe; and the father, discovering that 
it w^as an easy method of procuring rest for himself also, offer¬ 
ed the remedy as often as the dependent little one demanded 
it. To his astonishment, it was soon found that milk was there, 
and the child receiving actual nourishment. For seven months 
he offlciated in the capacity of a wet-nurse and saved it. 

Young heifers may become milch-cows, precisely in tlie 
same manner, by the efforts of. a hungry calf. This has been 
resorted to for gaining time, rather than patiently wait a natu¬ 
ral process. However, it ought not to be practised. 

About forty years ago, a young lady in Massachusetts was 
accidentally the subject of neighborhood sensation, which 
'would have been a valuable contribution to a medical journal, 
had it not been for a fear of damaging the reputation of 
both the living and the dead, because it would be difficult to 
make even medical men believe the possibility of what has 
since been fully established as a physiological phenomenon; viz., 
that lactation may be induced without being a motlier:— 

An accomplished yoimg woman in that stage of wasting 
pulmonary consumption which indicated a speedy dissolution, 
such was the severity of her cough, and the copiousness of her 
expectorations, was residing in the family of a married sister, 
the mother of a babe she was trying with considerable difficulty 
to wean. Being advised to leave home a few weeks—^it was 
thought the weaning might be more easily accomplished than 


THE WAYS OP WOMEN. 


87 


while she was continually in the society of her crying child— 
the mother departed. 

The first night after her departure, the meanings and un¬ 
ceasing crying of the child had such a disturbing effect upon 
the debilitated aunt, who could get no rest in sleep, that she 
begged the nurse to bring it to her bed, suggesting she might 
succeed better in quieting the poor thing, than the woman in 
charge. By tender attentions, which in fact consisted in folding 
it to her bosom, without particularly restraining its movements, 
and falling into a slumber from exhausting efforts, the little 
visitor found a pap. On awaking, and ascertaining that the 
infant was industriously endeavoring to nurse, she removed it. 
But its renewed screams induced her to take it back again, and 
let it have its own way. 

Thus, day after day, and nights particularly, the weaning 
babe was hushed into sweet repose. But what was the astonish¬ 
ment of the emaciated invalid, to discover she was not only 
relieved of some of her painful difficulties, the cough being less 
severe, her appetite improving, and the child thriving on a full 
breast of milk! 

A mortifying discovery to the aunt was this secretion, and 
that she was nursing a babe seemed miraculous. On consulting 
her physician, a discreet, philosophical gentleman, he advised 
that she should continue the course, it being evident she was 
rapidly improving from a condition of prostration quite hopeless 
before the baby was taken into favor, and suggesting the possi¬ 
bility of perfect restoration to health, if the pulmonary irritation 
could be thus favorably subdued. 

With encouraging prospects, and obviously improving 
rapidly, an event occurred that blasted the expectations of the 
medical attendant. 

On the return of the mother, unprepared for such gratifying 


88 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


prospects of a recently almost dying sister, and astounded at 
what was related of the child, it began to be whispered mis¬ 
chievously, by meddling village gossips, that the putative mother 
was not the mother, as had been supposed, but that the innocent 
babe, doing so well for itself, was actually the child of its 
reputed aunt! 

When the cruel slander reached the ears of the sensitive 
patient, the shock agitated her almost beyond pacification by 
sympathizing family friends. However, she resolutely refused 
ever to receive the child again, much as she loved it. Argu¬ 
ments and appeals were alike unavailing, although it was plainly 
explained to her that a sudden suj)pression of the lactic secretion 
Avould seriously damage her case. Hotliing could alter her 
determination. By the time the milk disappeared she was in 
the grave, a victim of a wounded spirit. 

It is not certain that the young lady would have finally re¬ 
covered, for, as has been already shown, where the structure of 
organs essential to life are destroyed, new ones cannot be re¬ 
generated. But violence of symptoms may be abated, and life 
very considerably prolonged, even when the lungs have been 
extensively ulcerated, and abscesses formed in the body of 
the lobes. 


Domain of Organic Sympathy. 

There is an unfathomable sympathy existing between the 
pelvic viscera and the mammary glands; and because we cannot 
explain it satisfactorily, it is better not to dwell upon a subject 
of so much importance in the successful practice of medicine, 
which cannot, to any advantage, be discussed in a popular 
treatise on the laws of health. 

With peculiar delicacy of mechanism, woman has also a cor- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


89 


responding nervous susceptibility. Her perceptions, ber intui¬ 
tions, and ber moral tendencies are ber own exclusively, and, 
tbougb allied to those of tbe male sex, ber nervous system is 
peculiar, and differs from tbat of man. 

Men may be refined, conscientious, timid and retiring, but 
still fall infinitely below a woman in those attributes which give 
dignity, grace, and loveliness to ber character. 

W omen faint more easily than men, and weep, too, artisti¬ 
cally when occasions require it; but no familiarity with cruel 
practices, no outrages or wrongs are perpetrated so frequently 
in their presence, as to deaden tlieir sensibilities to suffering, to 
appeals to the heart and their characteristic sympathies. 

They recoil at the sight of blood, scream at the approach of 
a mouse, yet, in defence of their children, face the mightiest 
array of force with a heroism that death cannot invest with 
horrors of sufficient magnitude to divert them from maternal 
exhibitions of moral courage absolutely sublime. 

Reason as we may, and rear arguments mast-head high, with 
an expectation of making the world believe phrenology is 
nothing more than ingenious sophistry, quite unsupported by 
facts, there is one circumstance obtruding just where it is most 
unwelcome to the opponents of that much-abused science, viz., 
that a large brain has more power than a small one. 

Human Heads. 

Small heads, it is assumed, are never distinguished for 
generating great thoughts. Further, there is a consciousness in 
coming into the presence of persons with large heads and broad 
open countenances, that an engine or a battery, call it by what 
name we may, is inside those strong boxes, which are a power. 

On the contrary, a pin-headed individual, whether man or 
G* 


90 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


woman, whose cranium scarcely rivals a cocoanut in size, with¬ 
out breadth—there is nothing commanding about it which 
impresses us with a conviction of superiority in or about the 
individual. 

That placidly received doctrine, that all enter upon the 
stage of human activity upon equal terms, and with equal 
aptitude for being qualified by education to act the hero or be 
a knave, according to circumstances, is more charming in a 
Fourth of July oration, than true. Cash and circumstances, 
especially the first, as society now stands, carries more votes than 
talents, and buys positions which modest merit could not acquire 
by the practice of all the moral virtues. 

Some are born to command, as others are to be commanded. 
This is exemplified in every form of government, from the 
nursery to a throne. 

!Notwithstanding an array of reasons advanced for giving 
women political, and, indeed, all other privileges which men 
glory in possessing, reference is not unfrequently made to their 
mental capacity, genius, and other cerebral attributes. They 
are not exactly underrated or undervalued, but there is a mean 
attempt at both, when impudence passes for argument. That 
they are inferior to men, just because they have.not their 
staunch bones or do not chew tobacco, is a slender cord for 
binding up absurdities. 

That the skulls of women are smaller, on an average, than 
male crania, cannot be denied. But that fact does not neces¬ 
sarily imply an incapacity for high pursuits. If they are small, 
there is a compensation in the quality for what may be wanting 
in the quantity. There are neither ganglions nor nerves in one 
that are not also existing in the other. Science or education 
will ultimately demonstrate that a female brain has a capacity 
for the reception of any knowledge men may or should acquire. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


91 


Education is a miracle-worker, especially when it takes 
female pupils in charge. That common notion, that woman’s 
sphere is one in which there is no need of knowing much of 
anything besides sewing on buttons, rocking cradles, or dusting 
furniture in the drawing-room, cannot have many advocates,— 
certainly, none of sense. 


Responsibility Somewhere. 

Fathers, brothers, and husbands are guilty of a great wrong 
if they neglect to elevate woman to the extent of their pecu¬ 
niary resources, in giving her all attainable advantages. Her 
mission on this fair globe is such that she must have intelligent 
training. All her faculties should be developed, and directed 
to meet the responsibilities of her position. 

Women are under too much restraint. They have been 
guarded in selfish ignorance, till a common sentiment has crept 
into our civilization that they still ought to have fewer privi¬ 
leges and less freedom than men. 

Extreme reserve, seclusion from avenues to a familiar knowl¬ 
edge of what is transpiring in the world in which they have a 
being, is making prisoners of those who contribute all that 
is really refined, elevating, and heavenly in our sojourn in life. 
Reserve may be carried too far, and freedom degenerate into 
vulgarity. That system, however, which inculcates seK-respect, 
has intimately incorporated with it dignity of carriage, gener¬ 
osity of soul, frankness of manner, chastened by the highest 
sense of propriety. 

Where there is too much scrutiny—too much fear of being 
too common—it is impossible to have a full gushing out of a 
woman’s real nature. Contracted views, hypocritical reser¬ 
vations, and concealment of motives, are always referable 


92 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


to a famished mind. The brain must he exercised, or it will 
perish. 

A woman’s nerves are cords of a delicate instmment—a 
harp of a thousand strings—which will not keep in tune if 
rudely handled. Whatever may be a success in the primary 
education of hoys, should also be adopted in the primary instruc¬ 
tion of girls. Quite into their thirteenth year, they should 
stand upon the same neutral level. Whatever is proper for 
one, is equally of value to the other. 

Boys and Girls in Childhood. 

Boys of a corresponding age, owing to their innate disposi¬ 
tion to frolic, and who in their boisterous pastimes put in 
action every thread of a muscle in their agile bodies, invariably 
have larger, stronger limbs than girls. Besides the circumstance 
of having larger bones, too, males of all the higher order of mam¬ 
malia possess an original endowment, in the general size of the^ 
whole body, above the female. 

Were girls permitted to exercise as boys do, unrestrained by 
maxims and trammels which ignorance imposes at home and 
abroad, in the nursery and the school-room, they would become 
nearly as muscular, and much more expanded. Their chests 
would be broader, but an instinctive delicacy never forsakes 
them under the roughest usage, or the most vulgar, demoraliz¬ 
ing associations. 


Over-Educating. 

A mistake in female education that will have to be rectified, 
before women have their true position, is over-doing. They are 
educated too much. Their ductile minds are developed prema¬ 
turely, to the positive injury of their bodies, before they have 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


93 


fairly begun to live. This, too, iis all wrong, and one of tbe 
causes of nervous irritability and excitability peculiar to females 
in tbe Northern States. They are made learned, without being 
practical. 

A discourse on astronomy, or criticisms on a musical com¬ 
position, make an accomplished daughter. When she becomes 
a wife, she is at the mercy of servants, and her husband quite 
undeiwalued, if he knows nothing beyond providing bountifully 
for the comfort, honor, and respectability of his family. 

Thousands of ladies are too erudite to be of any use any¬ 
where. They look with contempt upon those who have not had 
equal advantages for being made useless beings like themselves, 
and yet, when examined by the test of common sense, they 
have never contributed a new thought, or, with their accom¬ 
plishments, enlarged the circle of human happiness. 

It is not a crime to laugh at the rural habits of a plain 
farmer, but it is a disgrace to a tine woman to ridicule the 
simple manners of country ladies. If they could see themselves, 
occasionally, as sensible people see them, there would be a 
change for the better. 


Peetensions to Advanced Knowledge. 

Some city ladies entertain exalted views of their own 
superiority over their country friends. When the well-meaning 
Mrs. Baker, the grocer’s widow, retired with a competency, she 
purchased a pleasant domain of forty acres in the town where 
she was bom, one hundred miles from the city. Her head was 
stocked with scientific agriculture, gleaned from the best 
treatises on farming made profitable. She had not been two 
weeks at the new home, which was undergoing astonishing re¬ 
pairs, before she discovered the extreme ignorance of her neigh- 


94 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


bors in respect to rural pursuits, l^ot one of tliem bad ever 
read a page of modern agricultural literature,—^fascinating books 
for a cultivated mind. She resolved to revolutionize farming, 
by showing the world generally wliat could be done by a city 
woman with a will and money combined. 

For tlie purpose of extreme accuracy, Mrs. Baker having 
further resolved to report her successes in experimental farm¬ 
ing, she had a leaf in her diary ruled off for profits. She ex¬ 
plained, in the kindest manner, to her coarse neighbors—in lier 
opinion the most wooden-headed creatures she had ever known 
in the shape of men—that each bean, before planting, should be 
weighed in Professor Pollock’s patent agricultural scales. In 
that way an exact register of the increase could be determined. 
Fertilizers, purchased in tin canisters, which could be carried in 
a vest pocket, contained the virtues of a cart-load of nasty 
manure. Instead of delving with a hoe to clear away weeds, a 
pair of Sly’s patent vegetable tweezers were worth a dozen hoes 
—with that instrument the operator could extract weeds with 
gloved hands. 

All this was novel intelligence, really quite new to Mrs. 
Baker’s astonished auditors, who said nothing beyond express¬ 
ing uproarious wonder that a great lady had known so much 
about a subject they had generally supposed did not come under 
the catalogue of book-knowledge. They noticed she expressed 
herself in long terms, not in all the dictionaries. 

It was revealed to Mrs. Baker that some of her most re¬ 
spectful listeners, in appearance, actually laughed behind her 
back. ‘‘Kever mind,” replied the philosophical reformer, 
whose zeal had not degenerated into lunacy, “ let those laugh 
who win.” 

When harvest arrived, those ignorant farmers had excellent 
crops without having consulted an encyclopaedia, while Mrs. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


95 


Baker’s manager gathered less than had been sown. She 
opened her eyes with amazement to the solemn realization of a 
singular fact, viz., that too much science is unprofitable, if 
one intends to liVe by farming. 

Female education maybe deplorably defective when women 
are taught too much of what is of no earthly value to them, at 
the expense of their health, and equally so, when they assume 
to know what they do not know. Their systems may be de¬ 
stroyed by over-taxing the brain, while the machinery of organic 
life, on which mental excellence depends, is considered either of 
secondary importance, or quite overlooked. 


IJnsound Women. 

It is a national calamity that the women of this country 
are so generally unsound. Those distinguished for brilliant 
intellects are the most common invalids. To be under medical 
treatment is not only necessary, but very genteel. 

A gentleman of ample possessions and of excellent social 
position, gave it as a reason why he did not marry, that he 
did not feel able to keep apothecaries and doctors continually 
imder pay! 

Women would not be so nervously excitable, slender, 
fragile, sharp-featured, and petulant—=as too many of them are, 
for the happiness of their households—if they had not been 
wronged in the beginning, through a mismanaged education. 
They would not have been so universally predisposed to dys¬ 
pepsia, neuralgia, paroxysms of depression—which throw a 
gloom through a pleasant home, and discourage indulgent 
husbands—^liad they been generously permitted to breathe out¬ 
door air, subsist on plainer food, rise earlier, sit fewer hours at 
a piano, and read something superior to sensational magazines 


96 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


devoted to exaggeration, moonshine sentiments, love in a bower, 
and other kinds of nonsense calculated to mislead and over¬ 
excite their youthful imaginations. This is the misfortune of 
what society is pleased to call the better classes. 

The best-informed young ladies—those whose educational 
advantages embrace whatever is supposed will fit them for the 
highest positions which refined society has at its disposal— 
are the poorest wives. Matrimonial disagreements and wretch¬ 
edness are not found in the middle classes, but just where 
the refinements of the lady of the establishment enable 
her to discern imperfections -where she has fondly hoped to 
find a companion who would sigh perpetually, recite poetry, 
and buy cosmetics by the gallon. 

Their petulancy, curt answers, despotic rule of servants, and 
dissatisfied expressions toward those who are devotedly endeav¬ 
oring to promote their happiness, cannot be cured by pills, 
soothing powders, strengthening plasters, annual jaunts to 
Saratoga, or the attendance of a high-priced doctor. 

Liberty to exercise in childhood, without being constantly 
reminded that it is unladylike to run, vulgar to eat enough to 
satisfy a moderate appetite, and wicked to be natural,—but 
charming to cultivate hypocrisy, improving to be fastened in 
garments that restrain the growth of the chest, and glorious 
to be in misery for the sake of dying a real lady, is the 
lamentable cause of many of the common woes of elevated 
domestic life. 

Men and women were designed for each other on the high¬ 
way of the world. They are destined to the same length of 
days; and, above all, it was not intended in the original con¬ 
stitution of humanity that they should be strangers to each 
other, unless formally introduced, after having carefully in¬ 
spected a pedigree. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


97 


Nervous Centres, 

Besides injuries originating in the vice of dress prejudicial 
to health, suggestions ought to have been made respecting the 
violence inflicted on nervous centres. Just under the line 
where the pressure is most severe in girding on the waists of 
dresses, are the solar and semilunar ganglions. They are waj- 
stations into which nerves enter and others go out, which hold 
control over the stomach, liver, spleen, etc. They are the 
brains of the abdominal viscera. They surround a short, 
horizontal artery that shoots off from the trunk of the aorta, 
the great arterial tube from the heart. The coelic artery—not 
over an inch in length—subdivides into three. One goes to 
the stomach, a second to the spleen, and the tliiixi to the liver. 
Any compression of the waist, therefore, besides disturbing 
those nervous centres, interferes also with a free circulation 
of blood to three important organs in the abdominal cavity. 

Mandates, or volitions, are sent from the brain, but the 
way-stations—those ganglia—repeat the commands. Unim¬ 
portant transactions, when everything is progressing in the 
usual way in the viscera, are not transmitted to the principal 
office,—the brain. When there is unusual disturbance, pain 
and inflammation, then word is sent fon\'ard, and the judgment 
determines how to act. 

Simple irregularities of digestion may occur, but unless there 
is a grave condition of things, the brain has no immediate knowl¬ 
edge of it. It is not always necessary to communicate what 
may be transpiring in any one organ, unless its functions are 
seriously impaired: then a dispatch is sent upward to the brain. 

There are many considerations connected with the subject 
of the nervous excitability of women, which have called forth 

expostulations, but to no purpose. 

7 


98 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Were physicians to write plainer than ever, and address 
themselves to parents, instead of preparing elegant essays for 
journals, walled in by so many barriers of technical phrases, 
which nobody understands who is not an expert in half a dozen 
dead languages, no change of system would follow. Fashion 
is antagonistic. 

Social Relations of Childken. 

When boys and girls are brought up together—in large 
families, sitting at the same table, mingling in each other’s 
society, sharing in amusements and intellectual pursuits—they 
invariably go forth with better principles, stronger convictions 
of what is duty, and live purer lives, than those who are taught 
that it is sinful to look each other in the face, unless in the pre¬ 
sence of a watch-dog of a parent, or a dilapidated old duenna, 
whose eyes can be co-vered with a ten-dollar bill to oblige her 
young mistress. 

Important Caution. 

It should be taught children, that the pit of the stomach, 
as it is called, is nearly over those ganglions, or nervous 
centres, and that they must be favored in swathing the chest. 
A blow there is almost instant death. Life explodes, as it 
were, by any rude approach. A kick of a horse, or the 
weight of an angry man^s fist, at that spot, is almost invariably 
fatal. 

There are numerous glands in the neighborhood of the 
ganglions, which compression disturbs, and any interruption 
in their appropriate offices affects the general health; espe¬ 
cially those connected with the function of chylification, if 
pushed from their natural relations, or in any way interfered 
with. They may become scirrhous, enlarged, hypertrophied ; 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 99 

and a softening of the bones, too, is sometimes referable to 
a similar cause. 

Mendicant children of both sexes, common in public streets, 
scarcely covered decently in tattered loose garments, which are 
the cast-offs from persons twice their size, are in robust health, 
with splendid forms, sound white teeth, thick hair, round limbs, 
and good brains for cultivation. The rich man’s daughters are 
forced into being ladies before they know the meaning of the 
word, by a system of unnatural discipline that kills them by 
inches. 

Excessive fear of mingling with persons with a small rent- 
roll, or with none at all, and harboring the opinion that men 
are monsters seeking whom they may devour, are productive of 
nervousness and feebleness, traceable to the present system of 
female education; and which has also immensely multiplied 
maiden ladies, to the detriment of their own happiness and the 
best interests of society. 


CHAPTER X. 


AmUSEMEI5TS of Womei^". 

Young Animals in Sports—Blind Buffaloes—Keptiles—Brain Volume—Me¬ 
chanical Ingenuity—Conversation with Children—Theoretical Schemes 
of Female Education—Dancing—Entertaining Distinguished Guests— 
Theatres—Always have Existed, and Probably always will—Labor— 
Children Overworked—Philanthropic Efforts—Playtime a Sanitary 
Measure—Why Sleep is Necessary. 

XTo suggestions can be made, or plans proposed, for the 
innocent amusement of youth, that will not meet with opposi¬ 
tion from some source. 

The absolute severity of some parents, who believe they 
have the special approbation of heaven for making their chil¬ 
dren wretched by interdicting amusements, is very surprising, 
since, in their own youthful days, many of them were distin- 
.guished for reckless, rollicking lives. It can be explained on no 
other principle than by a common observation, that the greatest 
sinners become very exacting saints. 

All young animals have their sports and festive gambols. 
It is a natural way of exercising muscles, while under the 
excitement of pleasurable emotions, to act as they were intended 
to contract and relax when matured. Thus, they run, turn 
short corners, and seize each other with a tender grip precisely 
as they will hold their prey when urged by the stimulus of 
hunger. 

Such, certainly, are the characteristic manoeuvrings of car¬ 
nivorous quadrupeds. Cattle, sheep, horses, etc., till their teeth 
are fully grown, are particularly playful, when they become 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


101 


grave and cautious. The lion’s whelps, young tigers, foxes, 
bears, and those of a similar type, are extremely playful while 
nursing; but as soon as their stomachs crave more substantial 
food, the ferocity of their nature is manifested. Puppies are 
very sportively inclined, nor do they express their canine energy 
till they have had a taste of flesh. They then begin to quarrel 
among themselves, on the slightest provocation, which termi¬ 
nates in teri'iflc flghts for the possession of a bone. 

Grass-eating animals rarely give such vehement displays of 
irritability, even when goaded by pangs of extreme hunger. 
Colts, calves, fawns, kids, rabbits, etc., delight in the freest 
exercise of their limbs, if in sight of their mothers. The males 
only engage in combats. 

When battles are suspended, and renewed at short intervals, 
it is solely for the purpose of recuperation. A contest, once 
terminated by the submission of one of the belligerents, suffices 
for the remainder of their lives. The victor ever after walks 
abroad in the consciousness of being without a rival. Stallions, 
dogs, and bulls, wffien once conquered, remain in subjection 
while the conqueror lives. 

Blind buflaloes are actually leaders of immense droves, by 
virtue of their prowess in youth, which is respected by hun¬ 
dreds of brave bulls, stronger and younger, demeaning them¬ 
selves peaceably in the herd while the acknowledged ruler is 
able to move. 

Skeletons of bucks are often found in deep recesses of the 
forest, with their branching antlers so inextricably interlocked, 
that the combatants must have died, in that painful condition, 
of actual starvation. 

In these illustrations of the youthful propensities and habits 
of animals, the law of might is allowed to predominate. There 
are no rights acknowledged among themselves. Puny, feeble, 


102 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


imperfectly-developed males cannot compete with the large, the 
strong, and the highest type of the race to which they belong. 
Consequently, nature secures, in perpetuity, all the best proper¬ 
ties for a succeeding generation. 


Where there are no Amusements. 

ISTeither birds, reptiles, nor insects appear to have amuse¬ 
ments or periods of sportive relaxation. From birth, they are 
sedulously devoted to habits of industry, in providing for their 
own necessities and the wants of their offspring. There is an 
instinct always making reference to successors, but the sentiment 
of parental affection is not long-lived with them. 

Pigeons and domesticated doves fly about in groups, forag¬ 
ing, but they never visit eacli other’s cotes, nor engage in sports. 
The attachment of the parents, when once paired, might be 
advantageously imitated by reasoning beings, who find more 
relief in the laws of divorce, than comfort in dove-like matri¬ 
mony. 

Their attentions to their young are of short duration, and 
quite at variance with some other traits, which have been 
poetically lauded as worthy of consideration. 

Fishes, crabs, lobsters, turtles, prawns, etc., seem never to 
have sports among themselves. Serpents, frogs, toads, and 
lizards are solitary as oysters, each intent on selfish pursuits. 
Whenever they do huddle together on the margins of pools or 
in cliffs of submerged rocks, they never indicate the slightest 
gratification, or hold any intercourse with each other, more than 
with other inhabitants swimming in the same element. 

While young birds are being fledged in a nest, they lie 
quietly, without the slightest show of playfulness. Chickens, 
turkeys, goslings, ducks, prairie-hens, partridges, quails, peacocks. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


103 


and caged songsters, press together for mutual warmth or pro¬ 
tection, without manifesting the remotest show of a disposition 
for sport. Of the attachment of mother birds, nothing can be 
more demonstrative for a short period. They brave all dan¬ 
gers for the protection of their little ones, and die in unequal 
struggles for their safety. 

Affecting scenes are described by arctic navigators, of the 
attachment of polar bears for their nursing cubs, and the bloody 
encounters they have been known to maintain against rifle- 
balls, in unequal efforts to save the objects of their affection. 
Usually, the male is rather an indifferent spectator. Pairing 
birds, and perhaps a few of the pairing quadrupeds, make some 
show of interest in the young, in their most helpless infancy, 
and join with the mother in defending the lair; but, as soon as 
they are old enough to run and look out a little for themselves, 
the father loses all interest in them. Warm-blooded animals 
are those which have pastimes, rude to be sure, but, nevertheless, 
they actually enjoy social recreations. 

The Beain. 

As the volume of brain augments, a disposition for play¬ 
fulness is more apparent. Boys and girls scarcely do much else 
from the cradle to adolescence, than play in some manner that 
promotes their happiness. The fabrication of toys of any con¬ 
ceivable description for their amusement is a branch of manu¬ 
facturing interest that has always been profitable, and gives 
employment to large numbers of ingenious mechanics in every 
country, civilized or not. Yery large commercial houses are 
exclusively engaged in the importation of playthings for 
children. 

In the catacombs and mummy-pits of Egypt, and the cem- 


104 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


eteries of extinct nations, toys have been found in abundance, 
showing that the demands of childhood have always been re¬ 
cognized in every age and country where humanity has had a 
being. 

The disposition, tendencies, and irresistible demands of 
their nature for objects proper for exercising their juvenile 
brains, is a necessity, and has been, from the first formation of 
human society. Savages tax their ingenuity in making rude 
toys for their children. 

This may be thought a small matter, but it is of importance. 
Toys assist them in forming opinions, correcting their judg¬ 
ment, and in classifying muscular action. Distances, weight, 
dimensions, form, color, etc., are insensibly acquired, to be 
applied in other ways, and for far different purposes as they 
advance in knowledge. 

Give them Facilities. 

Mechanical skill and a genius for invention is very early 
manifested in some boys. They should always be gratified with 
the possession of implements for perfecting their designs. Too 
generally they are denied facilities which would give them 
great advantages. Tools are invariably coveted by such as have 
a mechanical turn, but nothing is more common than to deride 
their plans and ridicule their machinery. Let them have ham¬ 
mers, saws, chisels, files, and by all means a turning-lathe, even 
if they break some of tliem and lose the remainder. Children 
have wants, real ones too, which, when not positively preposter¬ 
ous, should be indulged. It may lead to proud results. Every 
one who has had experience with children, knows what a treas¬ 
ure a gimlet is to a boy. A jack-knife is something above 
riches. With it he converts shingles into windrmills, carves 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


105 


horses out of turnips, builds edifices with blocks, and makes 
happiness for himself with it in a garret. With a box of tools 
he learns the use of instruments, while exercising both brain and 
muscles. With tools, boys can amuse themselves in the dullest 
weather. While mending their broken sleds, or constructing a 
miniature wagon, they are creating something, which is always 
a pleasure. The little miss, in dressing her doll, finds unspeak¬ 
able enjoyment. It is teaching her how to use the needle, the 
thimble, and her scissors ; therefore, it is not a waste of time, 
but a regular course of instruction, in which practice makes 
perfect. 

* If girls and boys are benefited in no other way with tools 
appropriate for each in the sphere in which they have been 
designed to move, it is in being kept out of mischief while they 
are permitted to use them. They always love and honor 
parents who indulge them in the line of their social propensi¬ 
ties. Constantly forbidding them to do this or that, because 
they themselves dislike it, makes disobedient children. If men 
and women are but children of a larger growth, they surely 
ought to sympathize with youth, and not exact of them sedate¬ 
ness, or the solemn expression of thoughtfulness that belongs 
to mature age. • 

Associate with Children. 

Those parents who never allow themselves to mingle with 
their children, or express an interest in their little pursuits, 
have no foretaste of heaven. Conversation with them gives 
them encouragement in what, to their immature minds, seems 
of the highest importance. Kidicule is a hateful weapon in 
damping the ardor of ambitious children. Help them on with 
their inventions; assist them in their rude drawings; suggest 
improvements in their constructions; for a great architect, a 


106 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


splendid artist, or a distinguished engineer may be hidden in 
tlie rough combinations of blocks, old bricks, or snow-balls rolled 
together at recess in front of a country school-house. 

Young women, like young men, must have amusements. 
It is an inborn necessity of their nature, and hence the question. 
What may they do or not do, after passing through rattles and 
dolls ? 

A host of propositions emanate from all sorts of peoj^le in 
regard to the question, which is thought more momentous in 
reference to girls, than the question merits. There is a plain 
way of settling the matter, in accordance with the acknowl¬ 
edged rules of Christian propriety and benevolence. 

It is curious that more schemes for rearing young ladies to 
be what society expects and demands them to be, emanate 
from persons who never had daughters of their own, than from 
those who have had many to perpetuate their memory. Let 
them have the confidence and intimate society of their parents. 
That is one of the first lessons for improving them. 

Theoretical schemes on the culture of female youth almost 
always have their origin with sour, opinionated old-bachelor 
teachers, or, worse still, retired maiden ladies. 

INFLUENCE OF Music. 

Nothing more instantaneously quickens nervous excitability 
than instrumental music. Some airs liave such inspiration in 
them that we can hardly control our feet, which is a very direct 
mode of conducting off what the brain is taking in. If octo¬ 
genarians unconsciously beat time with their gouty toes, what 
electrical ecstasies get the ascendency of young ladies and 
gentlemen, when the thrilling tones of a violin break in upon 
their ravished ears! 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


lar 


Dancing is one of those natural, spontaneous outbursts of 
youth, which can hardly be suppressed by efforts of the will. It 
is not to be first learned before a disposition to dance is 
developed. Those who know nothing, artistically, of taking 
steps, or ever saw others dance, can scarcely restrain themselves 
from a sudden display of sprightly antics, when music rouses 
them to a state of exultation, which cannot be produced by any 
other means. 

Why have we ears for music, or music at all, if it is wrong 
to listen to it ? Why is Old Hundred any more acceptable to 
that Divine Intelligence, who is the author of harmony and the 
contriver of our acoustic nerves, than the College Hornpipe ? 

Dancing. 

Dancing is an admirable exercise for all the cordage of the 
body, and eminently conducive to health. It quickens the cir¬ 
culation, while promoting all the glandular secretions. Hothing 
else compares with that exercise. Hature intended it for a 
peculiar sanitary pleasure. Although young animals do not 
artistically dance, they caper and display their agility under 
the exhilirating excitement of exuberant health. 

We dance to sounds that stimulate a more highly-organized 
brain than animals possess, till weariness succeeds, which is an 
evidence that no further excitation is required for that time. 

Let hard-faced, dilapidated casuists reason as they may on 
the moral toi-pitude of dancing, it is perfectly in harmony with 
those hygienic laws, the observance of which, never carried to 
excess, tends to health and longevity. King David danced 
before the Ark of the Covenant, for which he was severely 
criticised by one of his pious wives, whose pharisaical hypocrisy 
was of a piece with tlie moral shock the sensitive objectors to 


108 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


a very innocent recreation pretend they feel when a hall is 
proposed. 

Religious intolerance, from immemorial time, has been at 
open war with the votaries of the dance. It is, indeed, remark¬ 
able that the clergy of some denominations never fail, when 
opportunities present, of thundering anathemas against that 
odious so-called sin, as though it were a dreadful crime in the 
sight of heaven. 

Under the shadow of those edifices where fearful denuncia¬ 
tions are annunciated against that shocking vice, and where 
solemn pronunciamentos are regularly promulgated, dancing- 
schools fiourish with undiminished success. Dancing has never 
been abandoned in any community where those great ecclesias¬ 
tical guns have been levelled, nor ever temporarily suspended on 
account of the bigoted hostility of bilious sour-krouts, who are 
never happier than when they have made some lady wretched, 
in obedience to their interpretation of the Divine Will. 

Government officials and municipalities greet distinguished 
guests with cordial attentions, which usually embrace festivities 
in which dancing is a prominent feature. 

Mokal Sentiment. 

Those self-constituted instructors in moral excellence, w’ho 
presume to assert what is most pleasant and satisfactory to 
themselves as being also most satisfactory to the power above 
they represent, gain nothing for morality by their hostility to 
innocent amusements. Ecclesiastical cannonading avails no¬ 
thing, since people will continue to dance while they have feet 
and music is heard on earth. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


109 


Theatres. 

Theatres are universally denounced by the same self-consti¬ 
tuted intei’preters of divine precepts, as the focus of demoraliza¬ 
tion; but, notwithstanding the unrelaxing bombardment to 
which they have been subjected, they are multiplying with the 
extension of civilization. Delighted crowds throng them, and 
they will continue to do so, while society exists in its present 
form. 

Were it true that scenic representations of the foibles or 
the. graces of mankind on the stage were as bad as ranting re¬ 
formers represent, a second deluge would have been required 
centuries ago, to wash, away their pollutions. 

Dancing, music, and theatres will be sustained while men 
have ears, music charms, and the stage represents the passions, 
hopes, fears, love, and hatred engendered in the human heart. 
'No legislation could arrest either, or suppress them so effectually 
as that they would not reappear in some form essentially the 
same. 

Appeals to the conscience have been as ridiculous as shoot¬ 
ing at the moon with an expectation of forcing it from the 
orbit in which it moves.^ Persecution is ineffectual. When 
legal enactments are sustained by a force strong enougli to stop 
public amusements, of which dancing and theatricals are most 
prominent and universal, because they are considered a nuisance 
or a sin, then moral reformers must interdict music also, in the 
same bill. After that, to be consistent, ears must be cut off, 
whenever it can be proved before an impartial jury of self-con- 
stituted saints, any man, woman, or child, wickedly, and with 
malice aforethought, listened to prohibited strains of melody, 
against the dignity and majesty of an offended law. There are 
in Europe, at the present moment, fourteen hundred and eighty- 


110 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


two theatres. In France, three hundred and thirty-seven ; in 
Italy, two hundred and eight; in Spain, one hundred and sixty- 
eight ; in Austria, one hundred and fifty-two; in Prussia, sev¬ 
enty-six ; in Pussia, thirty-four; and in England, one hundred 
and fifty-six. In the United States, where they are numerous 
and constantly on the increase, the Canadas, Mexico, South 
America and the "West Indies, make a very formidable list for 
the Hew "World. 

More Recreation Demanded. 

The opposition which narrow-minded people manifest 
against dancing, is perfectly unaccountable. In the Hew Eng¬ 
land States, there are not recreative amusepients enough for the 
proper relaxation of body and mind. Public sentiment was 
formed by Puritan ancestors, who were compelled to work in¬ 
cessantly for their preservation. They had no opportunity for 
relaxation or social enjoyment. Their ecclesiastical teachers, 
in whom they reposed implicit faith, and to whom they yielded 
servile obedience, were careful to instil into their crude con¬ 
gregations the heinousness of levity. The wickedness of laugh¬ 
ter, and blind devotion to the gloomy teachings of a church 
that fled from oppression to become^an oppressor, was incul¬ 
cated by saintly men who vigilantly superintended their fiocks. 
Labor was necessary, but they were over-taxed with cares which 
gave a fixed gravity of countenance that has been transmitted 
to tlieir posterity. This accounts for the haggard, gloomy faces 
which predominate there to this day. They are taught to do 
everything from a sense of duty, and never to allow any out- 
gushing impulses of hilarity. It is quite remarkable, that with 
the progress of society in art, science, literature, and humanity, 
there are still many remnants of the good old times referred to 
in their chronicles, who deem any deviation from their stand- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Ill 


ard of faithj a near approach to an abyss of misery in the 
woild to which offenders are hastening with railroad speed. 

Over-taxing Children. 

Children are over-worked—far beyond their powers of en¬ 
durance. It is discoverable in tlieir imperfect physical develop¬ 
ment. With us, their brains are over-taxed. Schools of every 
grade, from primary infantile to normal institutions, require too 
much. Under the impression they are having rare facilities for 
acquiring knowledge, the poor things break down under a pres¬ 
sure of too much instruction. 

Force of circumstances compels parents to place their chil¬ 
dren too soon in factories, where they are wronged out of their 
share of vital air to which all are entitled. Philanthropists 
have appealed to the legislature, but in vain. There is law 
enough for their protection, without a corresponding earnest¬ 
ness to execute it. Though all are born free, and have equal 
rights in the pursuits of health, wealth, and happiness, only few 
of the many secure either. Poverty connot compete success¬ 
fully with wealth. 

There is another field for culture where the harvest might be 
large, but the laborers are few. In private families where chil¬ 
dren are loved and watched over with paternal solicitude, there 
is a culpable ignorance in obliging their little ones to do 
too much, under the mistaken idea of giving them superior 
advantages. 

Precocious children disappoint the ardent expectations of 
their friends. When they arrive at an age at which they are 
fondly supposed to be ready to blaze with extraordinary mental 
brilliancy, their feeble light goes out. Slow and sure is a true 
saying. Gradually evolving an intellect, as a flower unfolds its 


112 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


beauty, is a safer process tlian bursting open suddenly, to wither 
under the first rays of a morning sun. 

Children ought not to be taught much of anything more 
than moral duties, till they have reached at least six years. 
Their brains are in no condition for concentrating thoughts 
before. They should have perfect liberty to act out their ex¬ 
uberant playfulness with as little restraint as possible, consistent 
with proper discipline in the lessons of good manners, courtesy, 
truth, and order. Time is not lost in giving them such scope 
for exercising body and mind. Their activity and ever-varying 
amusements are but so many ways of tutoring their muscles, 
their organs of sense, and in preparing them for the places and 
responsibilities of the future. 

Public schools are over-w^orking pupils, goaded by fear of 
disgrace or punishment; over-excited by promised rewards, 
their immature nervous systems are forced at the expense of 
their vitality. When pale, delicate, frail little girls are flattered 
into a morbid ambition in a Sunday-school, to commit to 
memory long, dry chapters, to them without meaning, it is re¬ 
prehensible. It is a violation of a physical law that has broken 
down and spoiled many a bright and promising child. 

Allow children all the play-time they wish. They will stop 
at a seasonable period for disciplining their innate powers, 
voluntarily, to commence a higher series of employments which 
will be also enjoyments. 

It is a lamentable mistake to keep young misses several suc¬ 
cessive hours at the piano. Dragooning them into accomplish¬ 
ments is a poor policy. Besides deranging the minute structure 
of the brain by long-continued practice at a single sitting, if 
attended with fatigue, the continued attitude presses painfully 
on certain bones. Curvatures of the spine, and a di’oop of a 
shoulder, are traceable to such circumstances. 



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THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


113 


Kecollect the bones of young girls are not completely ossified 
till near their twentieth year. They are not hard and firm. A 
fixed attitude, therefore, so as that the weight of the body 
presses directly on the pelvic frame-work, may warp them out 
of the line in which they should have development. hTatiire 
has inspired all young animals with a restless spirit, on purpose 
to keep them moving. A love of change is simply giving each 
and every fibre and organ a chance to perfect its organization. 

"While children sleep, which is about all the rest their active 
limbs require, processes are then rapidly going on for the phy¬ 
sical completion of their bodies. That is the reason why they 
require so much repose. Internal artisans then labor with in¬ 
tense energy while they are quiescent in slumber. 

Growth is suspended when they are awake, but renewed the 
instant their eyelids are closed. 

TJnfiedged birds in the nest sleep nearly all the time, after 
leaving the shell, till their feathers are sufiiciently developed to. 
sustain them on the wing. Their perfect quietude favors vital 
processes, so that in a very few weeks they are complete in all 
their proportions. 

When the brain is large, the process of growth is slower. 
Allow young girls and boys as much sleep as they desire. It is 
not from indolence, or a sluggish nature, that they are so uni¬ 
formly disposed to drowSe to a late hour in the morning. If 
they retired earlier, they would rise earlier. But Mature de¬ 
mands both time and opportunity for completing their bodies 
according to a prescribed pattern. If we interfere with that 
law, and interrupt processes instituted for that purpose, they 
will have unfinished bodies, weak brains, and poor health. 

8 


CHAPTER XL 


Their Mode of Livihg. 

Pickles — Dentists Benefited — Hereditary Tendency — Mountaineers — 
Digestion—Sugar-eating—Character of Food—Food of Animals—Camels 
—Artificial Teeth—Must Vary our Pursuits—Rural Diseases—Neuralgic 
Pains—Sallow Complexions. 

With digestive organs requiring tlie same kinds of food that 
instinct and custom sanction for man, there is a special refer¬ 
ence made in favor of some women, on account of a supposed 
delicacy of constitution. They imagine they could not subsist 
on ordinary diet. What they have must he very concentrated, 
so as to occupy but little room in the stomach. 

Unfortunately, it is ungenteel to have much of an appetite, 
especially for young misses, destined to circulate in fashionable 
orbits, whose ignorant mothers commence early with giving 
them practical lessons in personal elegance. To dine heartily 
would carry with it an extreme air of vulgarity: hence, the less 
a young lady takes at table, the higher her preparation for re¬ 
finements that are appreciated among those who think more of 
a fine form than of intellectual accomplishments. 

Light soups, rich cakes, choice fruits, and tea always, is held 
to be the dietary range of an exquisite woman. Articles that 
would meet the requirements of her system are quite inadmiss¬ 
ible, at least in the presence of satirical judges of propriety. 

Food most approved, and that which carries with it the 
endorsement of manceuvi’ing mothers, anxiously looking for¬ 
ward to the establishment of their children in commanding 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


115 


social positions, even if the intended husband is a baboon, is 
a slice of dry toast, weak black tea, and an occasional tea¬ 
spoonful of sweetmeats, 

HoiiROR OF Fat. 

bTo calamity is more dreaded than fat in an aspiring young 
lady. Consequently, on the presumption that partial starva¬ 
tion is the legitimate way of keeping it at bay—that horrid 
destroyer of female symmetry and female ambition, of which 
very many are in painful apprehension—^no efforts are left 
untried to preserve a slender form. 

There are two methods extensively in repute for keeping 
olf the enemy, which marketable belles manage with dex¬ 
terity. One is vinegar, drunk often; and the other, pickled 
cucumbers. 

Those in comfortable circumstances, unsophisticated in 
the ways of acquiring extra attractions through the resources 
of art; those under no restraints from a dread of fatness; who 
satisfy a normal demand of the stomach, and breathe and 
exercise in an uncontaminated atmosphere—happily are re¬ 
moved from the temptation, the trials, discipline, and excitement 
of artiffcial life. But they are commiserated on account of 
their robustness. 

Gaudily-dressed butterfly-misses, who are on exhibition 
in the street, at eclectic churches, if the weather is favorable 
for the display of feathers, diamonds, and streaming ribbons, 
are most frequently addicted to the vice of vinegar-drinking. 
A dread of fat is a misfortune,-when it degenerates into an 
‘insane determination to be the shadow, rather than the sub¬ 
stance, of a live woman. 

The consumption of pickles gives employment to many 
hands, and hundreds of broad acres are annually planted with 


116 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


cucumbers, to meet the mercantile demand—the consumers 
being principally ladies. 

Gardeners and dentists are benefited by a trade that en¬ 
riches both, while the effect is directly opposite on the health 
of that order of patients. 

This is the country of poor teeth. A full, perfectly sound 
set is an anomaly. There are many with beautiful teeth; but 
there are ninety in every hundred young ladies whose teeth 
are in a hopeless condition of premature decay. Brush and 
cleanse them as they may, the progress of caries cannot be 
arrested. 

'No doubt, the quality of their food may have some influence 
in injuring them; especially, if taken either too hot or too 
cold. But large numbers inherit a predisposition to an early 
crumbling away of the enamel, which exposes the bony part 
to the direct action of agents that blacken and destroy 
the entire body of a tooth thus denuded of its protecting 
covering. , 

This diathesis is propagated and shows itself from one 
generation to another. Sound teeth, strong enough to resist 
influences that act unfavorably upon others, are also an 
inheritance. 

Where an early predisposition to decay is recognized, 
there is the more need of supplying in food those materials 
which are appropriated for those organs in their growth, as 
well as preservation. With that tendency, acids hasten their 
destruction. 


COMMEKCIAL PiCKLES. 

Pickles are but vehicles for carrying acids, and, hence, 
those who consume them excessively, especially those with an 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 117 

liereditaiy tendency to premature decay, quicken the process 
of decomposition. 

Pure apple vinegar, or that manufactured from wine, is 
slower in its action than commercial vinegar, which is made 
of sulphuric acid. When diluted, it seizes upon the lime 
of the teeth with such activity, that the enamel gives way 
to its intense chemical agency. 

Cider vinegar is too expensive for manufacturing pickles on 
a large scale. Sulphuric acid, therefore, is the basis of that of 
which common market pickles are made. It is not uncommon 
to find a cask of pickled cucumbers converted into a thick, 
pulpy mass of green gelatinous material, without any remaining 
resemblance to the vegetable from which it was formed. If 
too strong, this result is to be expected, kept barrelled eight or 
ten months, without being opened to the air. 

Pickles, therefore, made from that acid, cannot be brought 
in contact with the teeth without doing an injury. Thus, in 
the expectation of preventing grossness, which, no doubt, is 
partially accomplished by acids, aided by a spare diet, caries 
and toothache may be anticipated. 

Sound Teeth. 

Travellers comment on our national tendency to defective 
teeth. Bad teeth, however, in the country, are not so common 
as in cities. There the food is not seasoned, usually, so highly, 
and is, therefore, freer from elements that undermine them. 

In new countries, especially in wheat-growing districts, 
where lime is largely combined with the soil, men and women 
are tall, and the females particularly noticeable for their sym¬ 
metrical proportions and admirable teeth. 

Tennessee and Kentucky are celebrated for their splendidly- 


118 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


developed specimens of hiimanitj. Their ont-door exercises 
and plain fresh food provide nature with materials for com- 
pleting her labors according to established laws. 

When the soil is poor, thin, and barren of hone-making 
constituents, the people are short, broad-chested, with lower 
limbs disproportioned in length to the superior parts of the 
body. There are tall and short persons everywhere, in every 
community; hut the average height is below that of the 
inhabitants of places where the composition of the soil favors 
their development to the utmost limits of the law of growth, as 
in the new Western States. 

Lime is scarcely appreciable by chemical tests where some 
cereals are raised successfully, and where families are remark¬ 
able for their strong,, fine teeth. Yet there are those among 
them who have decayed ones; hut the majority are favored 
with sound, well-formed teeth. 

Yermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and the adjoin¬ 
ing Northern States present an illustration of this fact in 
regard to had teeth bearing a certain relation to the agricul¬ 
tural resources of the soil. There wheat cannot be raised as 
at the West, and there dentists are required. They are almost 
as numerous as physicians. Dental operators appear very much 
disproportioned to the population of the cities and towns in 
which they settle. But that is accounted for in the facilities by 
railroads for their customers, who reside in the interior. 

Dentists are multiplying in the Western States, where once 
the profession was liardly known. Their patrons are represen¬ 
tatives of the Eastern States, in large proportions,—emigrants 
from the worn-out, exhausted soil of the Atlantic States, who 
carry with them the hereditary tendency to an early decay of 
their teeth. 

Estimated by the good they do in a sanitary relation, den- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


119 


tists are eminently entitled to all the honors and pecuniary 
independence they secure. When teeth, provided by nature, 
fail prematurely, art furnishes substitutes equally useful for 
mastication and speech. 

The ingenuity of American dentists is not surpassed any¬ 
where, in meeting the difficulties that present in thousands of 
irregularities in the jaws of the toothless. 

Cereals are most abundant in phosphate of lime. Indian corn 
is not to he despised or underrated as food, because it is deficient 
in certain elements in larger measure in wheat. Wherever that 
grain is used extensively for food, good teeth are in the majority. 

With the loss of teeth, not only the voice is considerably 
modified, but less distinctly articulated; certain sounds, essential 
to the perfect enunciation of language, cannot be given without 
them. Deprived of teeth, the expression is deranged. By a 
loss of the incisors, the mouth is out of shape, only to be 
restored by the substitution of artificial ones. 

When teeth have been long removed, an absorption of the 
gums invariably takes place, which brings the lips together, 
shortening the face, and very much altering it—giving an 
appearance of age. When the original level of the gums is 
restored by art, sunken cheeks are again distended, and the 
muscles of expression immediately bring back the original 
characteristic outlines. 

Because millions of teeth are blackened and eaten away 
by sulphuric vinegar, with a view to perfecting the form of 
the lady, by removing or preventing a superfiuity of fat, 
pains and penalties, disastrous to the teeth, have been dwelt 
upon with a hope of wakening those, who are blessed with 
sound organs, to the nature of the disaster, the evils of which 
they may avoid by abstaining from factitious vinegar, and, if 
they can be persuaded, from every kind of pickle. 


120 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Unbolted Flour. 

Good flour, that most esteemed on account of its whiteness, 
is the poorest for food in those qualities which furnish tooth- 
matter. In bolting out the bran, there goes with it the 
materials indispensable for the formation of bone, and par¬ 
ticularly teeth. Those, therefore, who subsist on coarse 
brown bread, made from unbolted flour, take into their 
stomachs precisely those elements that another class of good 
livers exclude, and they consequently have strong teeth and 
strong bones; while those, whose bread is of the finest and 
whitest quality, with their aching teeth to be filled or finally 
extracted, are the best patrons of dentists. 

When Graham bread was introduced, a dietetic reform was 
needed. The bread in general use among good livers was 
too much concentrated. The flour was deprived of parts 
that should accompany it, in order to give distension to the 
stomach and bowels. The Graham flour retains the bran— 
the very thing of all others in the composition of wheat, 
which contains the phosphate of lime. When stablers feed 
their horses on that article, they give them something far better 
than flour. It is providing them with materials for keeping 
not only their teeth, but their bones, in good condition. 

Ladies ordinarily subsist on food too concentrated. That 
is, it is too fine, and, therefore, does not distend the stomach 
enough to keep its walls from coming in contact,—a cause of 
many forms of indisposition, to which the poor, living on 
coarse, bulky food, are rarely predisposed. 

Diet. 

There is a medium course to be pursued in diet, which 
entails no disasters, but favors health and exemption from 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


121 


incidental indispositions, that oftener have an origin in strong 
coffee, strong tea, and fine fiour, than from any other 
cause. 

Too cold or too hot are extremes in taking food. By 
cooking, all food is not only softened, and therefore made 
easier for digestion, but it destroys, by frying, baking, stew¬ 
ing, etc., parasites which abound in meats, fruits, and garden 
vegetables. Their eggs, too small to be seen without a 
microscope, are spread over and through almost every edible 
from the market, by millions. Savages who take their food 
raw, or in a very crude state, are subject to a variety of 
intestinal difficulties. But their white, even, sound teeth 
show that they never have been subjected to the destructive 
action of hot drinks, concentrated acids, or beverages, which 
attack the enamel. 

Perhaps the characteristic ferocity of savages is due to 
an almost exclusive meat-diet. Fishing and the chase, for 
supplies, is their principal employment. Fruits and vege¬ 
tables are uncertain resources. Those they have are usually 
of spontaneous growth, with the exception of Indian corn, 
which is never cultivated in sufficient amount to supersede 
the necessity of ranging the forests for wild animals. 


The Method of Living. 

Having explained the dangers to which young ladies are ex¬ 
posed, who deal too freely with vinegar, we now proceed to the 
consideration of the true way of liHng, for securing sound 
health and beauty of form. 

Fish is both wholesome and nutritious. From very respect¬ 
able authority it has been taught that the brain is especially 

8 * 


122 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


benefited bj it. Whether iodine, phosphate of lime, or pure 
phosphorus is taken from it bj the absorbents, and carried to 
that particular organ, requires more decided evidence than has 
yet been adduced. 

In the history of fisheries, fishermen have been distinguished 
for their bold, hardy, adventursome spirit, good nature, and 
indomitable force of character. They brave storms, breast 
dangers of the sea, and in ships of war, their spirit, gallantry, 
and reliability are acknowledged. 

Mountaineers are another representative class. They are 
lovers of liberty, fearless, and the best of soldiers. Fresh air, 
plain food, and few wants, easily supplied, are excellent founda¬ 
tions for a vigorous constitution and mental activity. 

Food has very much to do in the formation of character. 
With a strong, well-developed body, there is usually a corre¬ 
sponding spirit. A purely vegetable diet is not conducive either 
to a sound body or an active mind. Starch-yielding roots, as 
potatoes, arrowroot, etc., will support life, but they fur¬ 
nish neither corporeal nor mental power. Combined with ani¬ 
mal aliment, corn, wheat, barley, beans, fresh or dry, etc., 
furnish just those elements required in temperate zones for 
developing the best intellectual and physical capabilities of 
man. 

There is neither strength of body, nor vigor of mind, when 
an individual is kept upon one article of food long enough to be 
loathed. The stomach must have variety, out of which are taken 
those substances required for keeping each and every organ in 
working condition. 

Each particle elaborated by the vital chemistry of the 
digestive apparatus, is carried to the place required, as attend¬ 
ants on bricklayers transport mortar to the spot where brick 
is to be laid. When the new particle arrives, absorbents carry 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


123 


away an old one whicli liad been in relation with others a 
sufficient time for imparting its specific vitality. As soon as 
that has been extracted and appropriated, another should 
arrive to take its place. 

♦ 

Law of Assimilation. 

Thus the body is constantly undergoing a change. We are 
reconstructed many times in a single year. Even the solid 
bones are gradually removed, particle after particle, so gradually 
and cautiously, that the fabric is neither weakened nor left ex¬ 
posed to dangers on that account. 

Many times in an ordinary life of seventy years, the skele¬ 
ton of every one reaching that age has been repeatedly re¬ 
newed. This perpetual removal and introduction of new 
materials explains the rationale of eating and drinking. It is 
simply furnishing a crude mass, from which are selected such 
parts as can be introduced into a living system vitalized and 
assimilated. 

A custom prevails of serving rare or uncooked meats, under 
an impression that they are more easily convertible into nourish¬ 
ment. If cooked too much, the quality is imagined injured. 
Thus, underdone expresses a condition that favors digestion, 
while overdone means that it is not readily dissolved in the 
stomach, and, therefore, is not as nutritious. 

Neither extreme expedites, or essentially retards, digestion, 
since the solvent properties of the gastric juice act with equal 
potency on either. By habit, if a person has been accustomed 
to hard-cooked meats, the stomach is prepared to receive that 
kind of preparation, and that which is rare would not be acted 
upon so readily; and vice versa. 

Soft-boiled eggs are usually served, because a notion is 


124 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


extensively entertained that the stomach sooner reduces them 
to chyme. But a hard-boiled egg dissolves just as quickly, and 
yet, the egg-eaters are astonished at the suggestion that it is of 
no kind of importance whether eggs are hard or soft. Either 
way, they are quickly disposed of in the interior of that mar¬ 
vellous organ,—a human stomach. 

Civilization, among other advantages over barbarism, re¬ 
quires that cooking should modify articles of diet. Cooking, 
too, destroys parasites which infest almost every thing in the 
catalogue of food. When introduced alive into the alimentary 
canal, the consequences are graver than when their ova are 
swallowed, which may not remain long enough for incubation. 

In raw food, especially meats so rare as to be hardly warmed 
through, eggs of the tapeworm and the trichinus are actually 
introduced into the system. Bare meats, therefore, are objec¬ 
tionable on that account. Well-cooked food is safest. 

Butter and Sugar. 

Butter contains materials for the reparation of teeth. Chil¬ 
dren are notoriously importunate for it, urged on by instinct, 
too frequently interdicted by model mothers on the unfounded 
presumption it is too hearty for them. That it spoils their 
teeth and their complexion, are reasons given for denying it to 
them. 

They would have better teeth for having as much butter as 
they desire. Egyptian taskmasters were told that it was im¬ 
possible to make brick without straw, and it is equally difficult 
to have good teeth without phospate of lime, which belongs to 
the composition of butter. 

Sugar, too, is usually withheld from children, who invariably 
crave it in far larger amount than it is given them. Bo demand 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


125 


of the system is more urgent than a desire for sugar. It can¬ 
not be overcome. Locking pantries, threatened punishment for 
invading sugar-bowls, never overcame the relish for it in small 
children. 

The body requires sugar, and it must be had from some 
source. It is provided liberally in a mother’s milk for her nurs¬ 
ing babe. While thus fed, the infant is plump, round, and cer¬ 
tainly lovely. AVhen weaned, its dimpled cheeks fall away, 
the fat limbs lose their form, diminish in size, and the whole 
figure becomes more muscular. 

Put upon a new diet, the quantity of sugar is much less 
than they had been receiving from a maternal source. So im¬ 
perative is the appetite for sugar, that if not supplied in their 
food in the quantity required for the purposes of nature, a sugar 
mill is set in motion in the abdomen of land animals, and 
especially so in ourselves, to make up for the deficiency. This 
is one of the curiosities of organic life. 

Every animal requires sugar. Some in larger quantities 
than others, but not one of them can do without some. Grass, 
hay, grain, rice, potatoes, beets, carrots, etc., contain it. By 
chewing and mixing with secretions in the mouth and 
throat, food is prepared for digestion; and when the essential 
properties finally mix with blood, there is extracted from it 
sugar. 

In the liver, dark venous blood is redistributed. While pass¬ 
ing through the vessels, there is extracted from it bile. This 
was long supposed to be the specific office of the liver. But it 
is made certain that the liver is a sugar-mill also. It supplies 
sugar rapidly, and the quantity made in a given time is perfectly 
amazing. 

Whenever the supply is not equal to the requirements of 
their system, the deficiency is made up by a more active elabor- 


126 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


ation of it in the liver. It is necessary, therefore, and must 
come from some source, or a disturbance in the balance-wheel 
of life will soon be perceived; but, unfortunately, the true cause 
of waning health under such circumstances is not often un¬ 
derstood. 

Food should not be too compact. It is really an important 
point that it should have bulk enough to distend the stomach. 
The stimulus of distension is a condition required in the econ¬ 
omy of life, because it facilitates digestion. That solvent fluid, 
the gastric juice, oozing, as it were, copiously from the lining 
membrane of the stomach, cannot act so advantageously on its 
contents in a flne, compact mass, as when loose and more 
readily permeable. Maceration, that is, simply being in contact 
with that secretion, is not perfect digestion. When there is 
bulk sufiicient, at least, to press the membranous 'walls of the 
stomach asunder, it quickens the muscular flbres to contact, 
which rolls the ingesta from one part of the sac to the other, 
and thus brings new surfaces to the more direct action of the 
solvent. 


Health of Laborers. 

Laborers, sustained on coarse nourishment, have far better 
physical development, more strength, richer blood, and a far 
higher condition of health than their opulent employers, whose 
tables are laden with delicacies their servants and dependents 
may never have had the gratiflcation of tasting. 

FTeither horses nor cattle can be sustained on concentrated 
food without seriously ^injuring them. Carnivorous animals 
have more compact aliment, but in them distension of the 
stomach is requisite for successful digestion. Feeding oats, 
barley, or any other grain to horses, exclusively, would soon be 
followed by gastritis, that would terminate fatally. The walls 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


127 


of their stomach must he alternately distended and contracted, 
to keep it in working condition. Meal alone, without hay, 
husks, or some equivalent, would not sustain a cow or an ox. 

A dog, imprisoned in the cabin of a cast-away vessel, which 
floated about at random, after being abandoned by the men, 
was found alive on the twenty-third day. Altliough the poor 
creature had not a particle of nourishment in all that time, his 
life was preserved by the thick covers of a Bible, which he 
gnawed ravenously. But they afforded no nourishment. He 
lived on his own fat and marrow, which kept the lamp of life 
flickering, while the stimulus of distension which the Bible 
covers provided saved the prisoner. 


A Keference to Contingencies. 

In the anatomical construction of animals, it appears as 
though a special reference was made to a possible contingency, 
in regard to a temporary supply of nourishment, by Ailing 
hollow bones with marrow, and cavities among muscles with 
fat. This is more marked in some than in others, which really 
seem to have had in view the possibility of the danger of star¬ 
vation in the circuit they were predestined to act. Thus, a 
camel’s life is considerably prolonged in their dreary voyages 
through deserts, where neither food nor water can be procured, 
by the absorption of fat from the hump on the back. Their 
ability, too, for carrying a supply of water that serves from ten 
to fifteen days, is an illustration of the fact, that an animal may 
temporarily feed upon itself, till relief^s found. 

Birds die of starvation sooner* than quadrupeds, because 
their bones being hollow for the purpose of being Ailed with air 
instead of marrow, are not storehouses against a time of need, 
as in the other case. The buoyancy of feathered bipeds is due 


128 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


to the long bones being filled with air. They coinmnnicate 
with the tip of each and every qnill, so that the barrels of all 
the feathers are filled with it also. If marrow was there instead 
of air, they conld not fly. They conld not have the same aerial 
freedom and levity. 

Warmth of the body rarifies the air thus inclosed, and with 
motion the temperature is raised, which still further rarifies 
it, so that the longer they are on the wing, the easier they 
move. A wild goose is said to fly more easily the second day, 
on one of their semi-annual migrations from south to north and 
back, than when the flight is commenced. 

There is a designing Power recognized in all these varied 
provisions for the preservation, not only of individual life, but 
also for the perpetuity of races. 


Recruiting Cities. 

Cities are largely recruited from the country. Hew-comers 
arrive in the freshness and earnestness of health. They leave 
homes where they breathed a pure atmosphere, and subsisted 
on plain wholesome food. With what is conceived to be a 
bettering of their circumstances, on changing locality, they in¬ 
dulge in seasoned dishes, anomalous soups and delicacies quite 
unknown to the family from whence they came. A morbid 
taste is soon engendered, which craves repetition, till the rosy- 
cheeked clerk, or the blooming young lady, transported from a 
residence in a distant village to become the presiding goddess 
of a palace, have uneasy sensations. Their conversation is 
principally devoted to the discussion of what is good or bad for 
digestion, and they soon begin to discourse upon what may or 
may not be eaten with impunity. Next, medical advice. 

There follows a physical deterioration of women, on their 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


129 


transference to cities from rural homes in the countiy. When 
they pass half the night at an opera, dine near their original 
bed-time, admire champagne as a beverage, taking no open-air 
exercise, except in a carriage, formerly enjoyed on foot over 
green fields, chatting with pleasant, unsophisticated neighbors, 
as lovely as themselves, they fail. At last, with all their pros¬ 
perity in social position, they are changed into pale, sickly, feeble 
fashionables, whose fingers, once round, full, and fiexible, are 
reduced to the appearance of birds’ claws. Sparkling diamond 
rings are not an equivalent for what they have lost. Artificial 
teeth, and perhaps a wig, made of the hair of some poor wretch 
who sold it to keep from starvation, shows what influence city 
life may have in the transformation of a beautiful woman to a 
pining, complaining, sickly lady. * 

Should they become mothers, their children are direct in¬ 
heritors of their infirmities, the penalty of irregularities not 
catalogued as dissipations, but which are conditions invariably 
resulting from violations of the laws of health. 

Without dwelling on the importance of abstaining from 
highly-seasoned, concentrated aliment for young ladies, it is 
obvious that they would have finer forms, health, and, conse¬ 
quently, brighter mental development, by subsisting on plain 
food. It is surprising that parents cannot be persuaded to 
adopt a system that promises, with moral certainty, to secure for 
their daughters sound health, the foundation for happiness. 

Reformers are pointedly severe against some of the courses 
wRich we maintain are to be encouraged in the rearing of young 
girls. They are opposed to many exercises which are not asso¬ 
ciated with some kind of productive industry. In their short¬ 
sightedness, they discover no utility in a simple promenade for 
exercise, unless a miss is armed with knitting-needles, or is 

reading some solid work—like their own stupid productions. 

9 


130 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Street yarn-spinning is not sinful. It is profitable to walk 
the streets and see new objects. While all the muscles are 
in play, shop-window impressions call into action all parts of 
the brain, which is as necessary for its good condition, as 
wholesome food is for the stomach. If the eye is con¬ 
tinually greeted with the same objects, or the ear has only a 
repetition of one class of sounds, neither of them will have the 
power they would have by varying both sights and sounds. If 
the brain is always acting in one direction, millions of its fibres 
are lying idle. 

The whole of us, as often inculcated in this work, must 
be used, or we cannot be developed into what we may have 
been. ^N'otwithstanding the severity with .which street¬ 
walking for exercise is treated by those who cannot appre¬ 
ciate the value of it in training body and mind, streets have 
not been depopulated by the cogency of their arguments. 
Streets of cities are inviting pathways, and those windmill 
warriors who have discovered that woman’s appropriate 
sphere is in the house exclusively, will never succeed in 
debarring them from the benefits to be derived from spin¬ 
ning street-yarn. 

Exercise is so essential, it should always be encouraged, 
especially on foot. When neglected, medicines and profes¬ 
sional attentions are pretty sure to be in request. Sedentary 
employments, or no employments, are equally pernicious, 
and are certain to be followed by derangements which would 
not have occurred had there been a sufficient amount of 
labor for tlie locomotive machinery. Simply passing through 
the air, reclining at ease in a carriage, does not meet all the 
requirements of a living being. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


131 


Increase of Eenal Difficulties. 

Renal complaints increase in proportion to tlie neglect of 
moving about on foot. The kidneys have a special office 
assigned tliem, of selecting out of the blood whatever is unsafe 
to be circulated throughout the system. 

There is but one direct and prompt way by which noxious 
elements taken with o\ir food can be conveyed away and 
thrown out, the retention of which would be injurious. It is, 
first, to dissolve them. Mixed with the chyle, they are thus 
introduced into the circulation, and sent to the kidneys. 
Whatever ought not to go further is intercepted by them, and 
separated from arterial blood, to be conveyed to the bladder, 
from whence it is voided. Therefore, the function of the 
kidneys is to be always in action, and never at rest. As the 
blood never ceases flowing in the vessels while there is life, 
the kidneys are always laboring without cessation. 

By free foot-exercise the kidneys are. very much assisted 
in their labors. Indeed, all secretions and vital processes 
are facilitated by it. Excessive indulgence in all malt or 
spirituous liquors, which are but too apt to stimulate the organs 
unduly, or, indeed, in any of those beverages palmed off on the 
unreflecting public as genuine, although really poisonous imi¬ 
tations, is very often the cause of a diseased condition of the 
renal glands. 

The kidneys are vigilant sentinels that never slumber on 
their post. They carefully separate and send away that which 
would positively lead to derangement of other functions, if 
allowed to remain unseparated. Even when collected in the 
bladder, the necessity of relieving that receptacle soon be¬ 
comes urgent; showing that what it holds, even thus secured, 
cannot be retained there more than a few hours, without 
producing immense disturbance. 


132 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN 


Over-wrought brains, like over-worked kidneys, might 
have been avoided. Abstaining from drinks that excite the 
kidneys to excess, is an indispensable condition to the health of 
those organs. 

A repetition of the lesson we are desirous of inculcating is 
pardonable, on account of its importance to youth. Simplicity 
in diet,—that is, plain wholesome food, thoroughly cooked,— 
is best for young girls, because it will secure for them a 
sound frame, and a clear intellect. 

If they would adhere to those early habits which are 
usually customary in the country, after a removal to 
spheres of excitement, characteristic. of what is thought, 
imfortunately, to be elevated social relations, they would be 
incalculable gainers. If they expect to escape neuralgic pains, 
a sallow complexion, loss of hair, decay of teeth, a wrinkled 
brow, waning vision, yellow moth-blotches where formerly 
there were tints of beauty, they must avoid the causes that 
produce those dreadful misfortunes. Whatever vitiates or 
impoverishes the blood, or over-excites the brain, diminishes 
the capacity for rational enjoyment; and a weak body, a 
debilitated mind, and premature death are the penalties 
annexed to the violation of the ordinary laws of health. 


CHAPTER XIL 
How They Should Sleep. 

Sleep Necessary to all Animals—Sleep of Insects—Somnambulism—No Rest 
for tbe Glandular System—Repose of Children—Should Sleep Alone— 
Transfer of Vitality—Marriage of Old with Young Persons—Should be 
near of an Age—Reason Why—Females in Factories, etc. 

Little or no thought is bestowed upon sleep, although a 
condition necessary for the health of every animated being. 
Man sleeps; beasts, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, and even 
plants sleep. It would be quite impossible to live without it. 
While unconscious and in perfect repose, a recuperation is going 
on, rendered necessary from fatigue and a waste of vital force 
expended while awake. It is only in sleep there is a perfect 
recovery of something of that essential part of life which has 
been lost. 

How or why we sleep excites no particular attention; but 
the place where repose is sought, and its surroundings, is an 
important subject for consideration. 

Hearly one-third of the allotted span of existence is passed 
unconsciously, with closed eyes. The body should be in a 
horizontal position to have the full benefit accruing from it. 

The lower animals sleep rather more than one-third of their 
lives. Reptiles, according to the climate, even more. Hiber¬ 
nates, in a sort of apoplectic repose, ’sleep heavily in northern 
latitudes, three or four months in succession. Alligators have 
a long slumber in the mud through a season most favorable 
for maturing their eggs, to be extruded on the return of a 
genial vernal sun. 


134 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Insects have their period of sleep, as profound, while it 
continues, in a house-flj, as an after-dinner nap of an alderman 
who engorges himself at the expense of his fellow-citizens. 

Somnambulism. 

Somnambulic unconsciousness is an irregular working of the 
brain, which calls muscles into orderly action without the con¬ 
trolling will-power, necessary for conscious relations to time 
and place, for the security of the individual. Yolition is par¬ 
tially suspended, and yet acts are performed while in that 
anomalous state^ which so nearly approximate true volitions, 
that it perplexes philosophers in their attempts at a rationale of 
what transpires during its continuance. 

Occasionally somnambulists, perform extraordinary feats of 
daring without knowing it, or rarely having even a dreamy, 
confused recollection of what they may have done during a 
night ramble, in safety, where they would have feared to tread 
in waking hours. This happens, as frequently as otherwise, in 
the darkest part of a moonless night. 

There are cases on authentic record in which a lady carried 
a lighted candle, and cautiously walked over a rapid stream, 
where she would not have dared to venture in full possession of 
her senses. 

Some faculty of the brain, yet to be discovered, is in action 
during such exhibitions. Yision guides the footsteps of the 
somnambulist through dangerous passes, and the motor nerves 
obey the commands of the encephalon. When locomotive 
muscles receive a message, another set of nerves express back 
to the central station, within the skull, the reception of the 
order, followed by the required movements. All this tran¬ 
spires without consciousness, as though an independent mind 
were directing the machinery while the other was slumbering. 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


135 


The immortal, indestructible entity—the soul—also reposes. 
This is inferred from the simple fact that unconsciousness, 
really and unquestionably, is sleep. "We are obliged to express 
that condition by the word sleejp^ since no better term can be 
found that carries with it a more comprehensive meaning. 

Organic Life. 

While the organic mechanism by which life is sustained 
remains unimpaired, the current of vitality flows on uninter¬ 
ruptedly, independent of volition. To a limited extent, it is 
quite beyond its control. Thus, the heart beats from the first 
moment of foetal existence, months before birth, till the last ex¬ 
piring breath, not unfrequently one hundred years; and through 
that long period no effort of the will can arrest its pulsations. 

We may hold the lungs from inflating by expelling the air 
a few moments; and, by practice, pearl-divers suspend respira¬ 
tion an incredibly long time, but vital necessity obliges them to 
come to the surface in about five minutes. 

In sleep, the mind has no directing influence over the infla¬ 
tion or expulsion of air from the lungs. The circulation of 
blood, the contractions of the heart, and the return of venous 
blood from the extremities for revitalization, cannot be checked 
or accelerated by will-force. A sudden surprise, painful intel¬ 
ligence, or pleasurable communications, however, singularly 
quicken or retard arterial action. 

IS’either the heart, stomach, kidneys, nor any of the gland¬ 
ular bodies interspersed througTi the abdominal cavity, are 
supposed to have any rest or suspension from labor. They 
work continually without relaxation. Muscles, on the contrary, 
must have rest. The brain must have relaxation in sleep; and 
the soul, too, if confidence is to be placed in the deductions of 
science, demands undisturbed periods of repose. 


136 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


In dreams, tlie mind does not have perfect repose. It is not 
refreshed under a state of emotional distm’hance, and, hence, we 
complain of not having had a refreshing slumber. If the mind 
is not as completely quiescent and oblivious in sleep, as the 
voluntary muscles which it controls, then it is but imperfectly 
recruited. Long-continued seasons of imperfect sleep lead to 
grave consequences, such as impaired vitality, nervous debility, 
and, if no relief is had, to insanity. 

Travellers describe the punishment inflicted in China on 
criminals sentenced to be kept awake till they die, as the most 
terrible punishment ever devised by the diabolical ingenuity of 
man, for tormenting a fellow-being. The closing scenes of the 
shocking condition to which the unhappy prisoner is reduced, 
are painful in the extreme. He finally becomes insensible to 
almost every form of torture that can be inflicted to keep him 
awake, and dies at last, about the fifteenth day, in awful misery. 

Two criminals in Russia, not many years since, were made 
the subjects of a scientific experiment in regard to the value of 
sleep in the maintenance of life. They were kept awake with 
the utmost difficulty, after eighty hours. What fiendish 
cruelties were practised on the wretched creatures* beyond 
wedging their heads, so as to be continually receiving droppings 
of cold water, has not been revealed; but on the nineteenth 
day, death mercifully terminated their misery. Such punish¬ 
ment is a disgrace to any country, and too shocking to be 
tolerated where Christianity is the religion of the rulers. 


Constitutional Stamina. 

A sound constitution must have its beginning in childhood. 
Small girls, anywhere from three years to ten, should sleep in 
good-sized airy rooms. It is not always possible or convenient 





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• THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


137 


to provide them spacious apartments, but it is possible to ven¬ 
tilate their dormitories thoroughly daily, in a house with doors 
and windows. On a free introduction of air, vital elasticity and 
recuperation of the sleeper mainly depends. Of the value of 
an uncontaminated atmosphere, no one entertains a doubt; 
therefore, the discussion of a subject so frequently before the 
public as ventilation, is passed over in silence, its importance 
being understood, and everywhere appreciated. 

When too many persons occupy the same apartment, even if 
of large dimensions, the vitality of the air* is ultimately 
diminished very considerably, which is recognized by an in¬ 
creased temperature, perspiration, and physical exhaustion. 
Small rooms, in the occupancy of two persons, are soon in a 
similar state, if no fresh supply is regularly admitted. 

Two children sleeping in separate beds thrive better than 
when together in the same bed, even in a spacious room, high 
studded, and in other respects appropriate, because they are 
kept from iiihaling each other’s breath, hardly to be avoided in 
their unconscious relations in sound sleep. 

Expired air is charged with elements deleterious to other 
lungs, and especially so if from - a person indisposed or sick. 
Expired air directly from the mouth or nostrils is deprived of 
all its vital properties. If inhaled into the lungs of another, it 
is particularly injurious. hTo doubt, many painful forms of 
sickness in children, which cannot be accounted for on familiar 
principles, have an origin in the baneful inhalation of another’s 
breath. • 

A lady exposed to incidental inhalations of the offensive 
breath of a smoking husband, or one whose expirations are laden 
with alcoholic odors, is liable to various forms of indisposition, 
the result of Nature’s efforts to drive out of her system the cause 
of disturbance. ^. 


138 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. • 


Expired air is deprived of oxygen, the pabulum of life, 
while carbonic acid, destructive to life in its highest forms, con¬ 
stitutes the volume of breath thus expelled from the lungs, 
mixed with aqueous vapor and impurities, which chemistry 
detects. Other vile products, traceable to tobacco and whiskey, 
are also carried off in the breath. 

When such expired compositions are drawn into the sound 
chest of a sleeping companion, although only occasionally, an 
incalculable amount of future suffering may be thus unsuspect- 
edly commenced, which medical skill cannot always successfully 
control. 

Growth, strength, and the regularity of organic functions, 
perfect nutrition and mental development, are each iind all of 
them defective, if the air is charged with deleterious elements, 
or simply deprived^ of oxygen. 

Each one is entitled to as much pure air as their organization 
requires,—the lungs being the instruments for separating the 
constituent^ of which it is formed, and conveying sMch elements 
into the circulation as support life, and rejecting those which 
are noxious. 


Transferej^ce of Vitality. 

A pale, feeble, sickly appearance of children, whose debility 
cannot be clearly accounted for, and made the more mysterious 
from having a sound healthy parentage, not unfrequently are 
amply provided with all the appliances for their comfort with 
ope single exception,—their sleeping-room. 

It is a wise precaution,’therefore, to place girls in separate 
beds, and better still, give each one a room exclusively to herself. 
Neither is it proper for sufficient reasons that might be given, 
for children of different ages to sleep in the same bed, even when 
ventilation and tlie dimensions of the apartment are satisfactory. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


139 


When two children are thus associated for eight or ten 
hours, it has been ascertained that, if either becomes indisposed, 
it is usually the youngest, although both were in the beginning 
equally well and robust. 

Physicians recognize a law of which very little is knovui be¬ 
yond the effects resulting from imprudence, in placing persons 
of different ages under circumstances which lead to an actukl 
transference of vitality from one to the other, at the expense 
of the one from whom it is drawn. 

By placing a strong and a feeble child in bed together, after 
a few months the latter will profit physically, while the other 
will lose some of its former freshness and vigor. If a sound, 
plump, healthy child sleep with an emaciated, sickly, or aged 
person, the former becomes indisposed. Therefore, children of 
a tender age should not be the bed companions of aged aunts 
or grandmothers. 

Sometimes a blooming child is unaccountably reduced in 
strength, loses its rosy cheeks, and moves about languidly, 
losing its relish for food,—which may result from sleeping with 
an aged person. 

A feeble, attenuated woman, advanced in years, will won¬ 
derfully recruit by sleeping with a healthy child. She myste¬ 
riously imbibes vital force from the innocent in her withered 
arms. 

How that subtle something that passes from one to the 
other is transferred, or what it is,—^has not yet been philosophi¬ 
cally demonstrated. The fact, however, that some property 
does escape from one, and is taken up by the other, is not ques¬ 
tioned by medical men. 

It is not judicious, therefore, to have a nurse who has 
passed beyond the middle age of life, for an infant. She will 
take from the child, by this law of transference, more than the 


140 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


child will receive from her. It is equally unsafe to place chil¬ 
dren of a tender age in sleeping-rooms, or in bed with servants 
or nurses who are ten and hfteen years older, or have sallow 
complexions, decayed teeth,’ a bad breath,* or peculiar habits of 
any kind. 

These precautions have express reference to young female 
children. But it would be equally injudicious to permit an 
athlethic, energetic boy to be the habitual bed-fellow of his 
grandfather. 

Such violations of the general laws of health are not so 
common in regard to boys as girls. Aged women are particu¬ 
larly fond of sleeping with their young kindred. Their 
sympathies are active, and their love for the society of 
children rather increases than diminishes with the progress 
of years. 

The extraction of vitality was far better understood by the 
Jews at an early historical period, than by modern teachers of 
hygienic laws, with all the assistance and appliances of modern 
discoveries. 

When King David was waning in health, and the alarm 
spreading that his life was in danger, on the philosophical 
principle recognized in this chapter, effort was made in 
his behalf to transfuse vitality into the monarch’s cold and 
fragile body, by taking it from a very select source. But the 
hopeful experiment was deferred too long. He could gather 
no warmth, in the language of the sacred narrative, and the 
king gave up the ghost. The theory was correct, but it was 
put in practice too late to be of service. 

When a young man, for the worldly consideration of pro¬ 
perty, weds a woman old enough to be his mother, she will 
gain by the contract in health. Kepeated instances of ill- 
assorted marriages of that description have established the 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


141 


fact, that the husband will decline in health, with all his 
advantages of youth, and generally die first. His vitality is 
transferred. 

This may he novel intelligence to those who are more 
intent upon bettering their financial circumstances by matri¬ 
mony, than in securing happiness in that sacred relation. 

In those reprehensible and unnatural matches, where 
selfishness is the ruling passion, an aged wife, in a majority 
of cases, will become a widow. 

Reversing the proposition, the husband being the oldest 
by years enough to have been the father or grandfather of his 
wife, although so much her senior, may outlive his young 
wife. 

There are many deviations from the principles laid down 
\n these observations, but individpal cases do not conflict at 
all with this peculiar law in reference to the transference of 
vitality. 

When a young woman sells herself to a^man old enough 
to be her grandfather, she puts her life in jeopardy. She 
usually dies first. There are modifying circumstances, some¬ 
times, that partially arrest the downward tendency to a pre¬ 
mature dissolution, of which the public are ignorant. Family 
secrets embody physiological problems more strange than 
poetic fiction. Of the many who thus run the gauntlet for 
luck in marital adventure, a few win the race, living to get 
what they anticipated—wealth. When women have attained 
it by a sacrifice, they deliberately survey the ground, and 
select a second husband more congenial to their age, to fill an 
hiatus in their affections. 

It is a fearful risk to marry a husband considerably the 
oldest. There should be a correspondence in age, as in 
temperament and disposition, to secure all that a divine 


142 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


institution promises to those who are guided bj reason, 
rather than impulse, on entering upon the solemn obligations 
of matrimony. 

Law of Adaptation. 

A man should not be much more than nine years older 
than his wife. From four to seyen years the senior is a 
natural relation, and always insures a reasonable prospect of 
domestic happiness. Their physical, intellectual, and moral 
natures then harmonize most satisfactorily.’ 

Leaving out ambitious views in regard to advantageous 
alliances, from a selfish determination to sacrifice yearnings 
of the heart for pecuniary power, if the husband is a few 
years older than his wife, both parties will have more domestic 
comfort than when madam is the senior. 

In regard to sleep, as especially belonging to the domain 
of health,—it may be received without qualification, as both 
sound and reasonable, that two women accustomed to .sleep 
together would escape many annoyances in the form of 
headaches, neuralgic twinges, occasional nausea, etc., were 
they in separate beds. 

It is injurious for two men of about equal age to lodge 
habitually in the same bed, but always worse for females. 
Young women, at all times after the establishment of perfect 
womanhood, should lodge alone. The objections to sleeping 
together are not removed, even though the apartment is 
large and airy. 

Husbands and wives sleeping in the same bed do not con¬ 
taminate the air, as two men or two women do. There is a 
correcting infiuence from opposite sexes thus circumstanced, 
difficult to explain, but, nevertheless, true. In many parts of 
Italy they practise the discreet policy of never permitting 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


143 


two persons to occupy one bed, by making them too narrow 
for two. It impresses the traveller with curious surprise 
to see hotel beds in that sunny land so very insignificant 
in width. 

There is a peculiar electrical condition of the sexes. Two 
females do not develop the same nervous state, neither is it pro¬ 
duced by two men, that is, elicited by one of each sex. The 
extreme subtlety of this phenomenon defies scrutiny. We really 
do not know anything about it beyond the fact, which is familiar 
knowledge with those who have no insight into the first prin¬ 
ciples of science. 

It is said that a man and a woman, introduced into a per¬ 
fectly dark room, totally ignorant of the presence of each other, 
will not only soon ascertain that a person is present, and that 
without moving an inch, but decide accurately whether the 
neighbor, unseen and unheard, is a man or a woman ! 

Female Operatives. 

One reason why female operatives in large manufacturing 
establishments, as cotton-mills, book-binderies, printing-offices, 
paper-box shops, tailoring lofts, etc., are pale, cadaverous, or 
yellowish, besides being of inferior strength, although but a few 
months thus circumstanced, is due to exhalations from their 
o\vn bodies, inhaled with the air they are breathing. 

A morbid craving for clay, charcoal, slate-pencils, chalk, 
broken bits of crockery, and similar substances, is almost 
irrepressible among females when working together in con¬ 
siderable numbers. This is usually regarded as a novel cir¬ 
cumstance. 

Deprived of home influences, grouped together in a vitiated 
atmosphere, morbid propensities are generated. 


144 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Such was the charcoal-eating propensity of the female 
weavers in one of the great mills in Massachusetts a few years 
since, orders were given to lock the bins in which charcoal was 
kept, as the girls were actually consuming such quantities daily. 

Temperatuke of the Body. 

In drawing-rooms, halls, concerts, and, indeed, on all public 
occasions, where large numbers of persons are compactly wedged 
together, ladies, much sooner than men, complain of a sense of 
suffocation. While gentlemen are quite at their ease, the 
feminine part of the audience are plying fans with extreme 
activity. 

In churches, men sit bundled in thick heavy clothing, but¬ 
toned to their chins, and then are only just comfortable, while 
ladies throw off their outer garments, and express by various 
movements their oppression from heat or foul air. 

In public conveyances, nothing is more common than to 
^have a car full of men thrown out of temper by the entrance of 
a frail, shadowy woman, who immediately requests a window to 
be opened. On some railroads, cars are expressly appropriated 
for females, in which they may have a temperature as much 
below zero as their necessities require; but they invariably in¬ 
dicate dissatisfaction in being placed by themselves, even though 
they might respire more agreeably. 

Clothing which women wear is more delicate in texture, 
thinner and lighter than male attire in the same climate. Yet 
they are as warm and comfortable as muscular men in their 
Mclntoshes and buffalo overcoats. 

This shows that women have a temperature above the slug¬ 
gish vitality of their legal protectors. Their circulation is more 
rapid up to about forty-five, ceteris jparihus^ than the circula- 







Notliing ie more oommoii than to have a ear full of gentlemen thrown out of 
temper by the entrance of a frail, shadowy woman, who immediately requests a 
window to be opened .”—Page 144, 














































































































































































11 














THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


145 


tion of men, sustained upon the same diet, and having a home 
in common. 


Sleeping with Animals. 

The importance of having women sleep well—that is, re¬ 
freshingly—need not he argued. A vile practice is gaining in 
this country, that should he frowned down by all well-wishers 
to humanity. Young ladies, and particularly many in the 
maturity of age, are excessively fond of pet dogs. They are 
their most intimate companions, and they bestow as much at¬ 
tention upon them as affectionate mothers mete out to their 
children, to gratify their philoprogenitiveness. It must he met 
by something, and black-and-tan imps take.the place which poor, 
abandoned orphans should have in their arms and in their 
affections. 

They not only feed them on delicacies unsuitable to their 
natures, hut they take them out to ride in carriages, when it 
would please them more to have liberty to run on the ground, 
like all quadrupeds. It is disgusting to see little snapping curs 
receiving tlie fondest caresses and the sweetest tones of endear¬ 
ment, lavished on them by accomplished women who would 
not allow imploring poverty to stand between ■ their ladyships 
and a darling puppy. 

There are demoralizations and contaminating influences 
connected with this canine mania, which a loving father is 
bound to forbid. If his commands are not honored, his next 
resort should be a revolver, which would most effectually rid 
the premises of such unnatural and such disgusting associates 
of his daughters or his wife. 

ISTot satisfied with feeding their dogs with dainties unsuit¬ 
able to their organs of digestion, their carnivorous maws are filled 

with such articles as they like best themselves; they pamper 

10 


146 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


tliem on cushions, walk with them reposing on their bosoms, 
and sleep with them ostensibly at their feet. The rage for 
pet dogs is a cultivated taste. They commence with moderate 
attentions, but soon become fascinated, and next bewitched. 
From a pillow on a rug, they are promoted to the foot of the 
bed. Having served a sophomorical period there, the rise to 
the position of senior and intimate companion is not distant. 

“ Whoso lies do-^vm with dogs will rise up with fleas,” says 
the proverb. It cannot be healthy for a woman to inhale air a 
dog has breathed, to say nothing of the emanations from the 
pores of his body in the confined apartments in which such 
favorites are ordinarily kept. 

There is a tremendous exposure to an incurable malady, if, 
by any mishap, madam or her daughter should be bitten by a 
rabid pet. They become mad, and no dog is proof against a 
sudden development of that incurable malady,—hydrophobia. 

Cats are preferable to dogs for little children, in their kitten- 
hood days, as less prone to bite and snap, even if handled 
roughly.* 


* June Stli, 1871, tlie following circumstance occurred in a police court 
in the city of New York, which shows how strong an attachment for a dog 
may become:— 

Mrs. Sophia Clinton lived at 156 Clinton street. She had a little black- 
and-tan dog, and the black-and tan dog’s name was Dexter. A week ago the 
dog strayed away or was stolen, and she advertised in the papers, and 
searched the metropolis for that little dog. At last she found him in the 
possession of a Grerman named Lippman Kessler, living at 130 Attorney 
street. But Mr. Kessler would not give up the animal. So Mrs, Clinton had 
Mr. Lippman Kessler arrested, and he was brought before Judge Scott, at 
Essex Market. Quite, a scene ensued as the high disputing parties made 
their entrance into the vestibule of Justice. Mrs. Clinton is a tall, slender 
lady, of fine presence, and has beautiful blonde hair. Mr. Kessler is a gross¬ 
looking Teuton of herculean build. The lady was very demonstrative in her 
affections, and kissed and hugged the “innocent cause of the war,” calling 
him “mother’s own baby,” and other endearing terms. Poor little “ Dexter 
was lost, wasn’t he ? Poor little pet I” 



THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


147 


Cribs for Infants. 

When a child has been weaned, it should have a crib by 
itself. With the development of teeth, it is a sign a modified 
aliment is required, and their food should have more solidity. 
I7o rules can be given, nor are they required, for feeding young 
children. ISTo arbitrary system of dieting can be borne. Va¬ 
riety is necessary, that elements may be selected by fashioning 
vessels essential in their economy. 

If a child of a tender age is habitually fed on diluted milk, 
softened biscuit, rice, tapioca, and similar unsatisfactory pap, 
because an ignorant mother has a theory which becomes a law 
in her own house,—if it lives, it can hardly escape having a 
defective mind encased in a feeble body. 

Over-doing. 

Thousands of children die annually that would have lived, 
had they been let alone. One of the trials of infancy is teeth¬ 
ing. Large numbers are chronicled in the bills of mortality as 


“Oh, yai^ zayDechster! Dechster! mooch vot you bleese. I call heem 
Preence. He coom shoosd de zame,” said Mr. Kessler. 

“ What mark do you know him by?” asked the judge. 

Mrs. Clinton—“ His claws were cut short, so he would walk nice, and 
his ears are cut longer than most dogs’; and. Judge, here is the man that cut 
his ears; ” pointing to a young gentleman standing alongside. 

Mr. Kessler—“ Oh, yais. You hear owel ahoud dem tings fon de bo- 
leeceman. Coom here, Preence, coom. You see, Shudge, he coom to me 
yust de same;” and the little dog trotted over to his last owner. 

Judge—“Where did you get the dog?” 

Kessler—“ I got heem fon a shoemaker man. I dond can remember his 
name, dere is so mooch excitements about dot.” 

Mrs. Clinton called the dog back again, and it clung to her, as if it had 
regained its mistress. At last the Judge decided in her favor, and she 
stalked off triumphantly. 



148 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


having died from that cause. The truth is, if the facts could be 
known, children are doctored to death far oftener than they die 
from diseases peculiar to their age. Indifferent physicians 
guess at their ailments, and prescribe accordingly, without much 
reflection, since to do nothing, when called in for advice, would 
be rather unprofessional. 

Charging the stomachs of little children, who cannot give 
any account of their indisposition, with nauseous drugs, is repre¬ 
hensible. More vital effort is wasted to throw them off, than 
would have been expended in resisting the invasion of inflam¬ 
mation of the gums in the protrusion of primary teeth. 

Let infants and young misses have separate beds. School 
girls should invariably sleep by themselves. When they be¬ 
come young ladies, it is inexcusable to permit two of them, 
however attached and dear to each other as friends, to occupy 
the same beds habitually. 

Pulmonary consumption is sadly sweeping away women 
from spheres they beautify and adorn. The mortality is far 
beyond what it would be from hereditary sources, because tliose 
who die of it transgress many laws of health. To obviate the 
formation of a susceptibility in the constitution to the approach 
of pulmonary consumption, begin seasonably by simply avoid¬ 
ing exposures to influences which may be derived from sleeping 
with others in early life. 

Beds. 

There is another subject connected with this topic, too long 
overlooked, which it is proper to introduce. The materials of 
which beds should be made is an important study. 

It is certain that there is a constant exhalation from the 
surface of the body. If the emunctories are closed by inflam¬ 
mation, or accumulations of foreign matter, a thickening of the 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


149 


epidermic tissues, indeed, fr'om any source, as exanthematous 
obstructions, produces internal febrile heat and universal dis¬ 
turbance in the system. 

Febrile heat sometimes ensues on mechanical principles,— 
from the non-escapement of fluids which ought necessarily to 
pass ofl externally. Insensible perspiration is a safety-valve for 
the body, as much as a crater of a volcano is the natural outlet 
of pent-up forces that would destroy the whole mountain if not 
allowed to escape. 

The kidneys by no means secrete all the fluid taken into the 
stomach in a very warm day. 

Fluids taken by the renal apparatus directly to the bladder, 
hold in solution elements already referred to as being com¬ 
mingled with our food, but hurtful if not carried off in the 
most direct manner. 

Those who perspire freely, when exposed to a slightly 
elevated temperature, have thus less duty imposed on the 
kidneys. 


Offensive Cutaneous Exhalations. 

Persons who perspire easily, and more than others under or¬ 
dinary circumstances, rarely have either dropsy or renal 
difficulties. 

There is a singular difference in the character of cutaneous 
transpirations in different persons, detected by the sense of 
smell, but not by the individual from whom it escapes. It is 
offensively unpleasant to the olfactories from most colored per¬ 
sons, particularly when they have been exercising or in warm 
weather. 

That disagreeable odor is not without its use in the general 
economy of things. Africa abounds with annoying insects, the 


150 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


torment of humanity, as of all animals. So particularly offen¬ 
sive is the perspiration from the bodies of the natives, it pro¬ 
tects them, like an invisible cloud, against attacks of swarms 
of pestiferous flies, gnats, and winged plagues of indescribable 
forms, which no life could resist, were it not for that curious 
provision for defense. 

Apiarians are familiar with what every body knows, that 
bees cannot tolerate the presence of some persons, while others 
may handle their hives, extract sheets of comb, or swarm new 
colonies with perfect impunity. 

This is accounted for by the ignorant, on the presumption 
that honey-bees recognize an enemy in the one or a friend in 
the other. No doubt those who annoy them by their presence 
to exasperation, give off an offensive vapor which the acute or¬ 
ganization of the bees detects as a nuisance. Those who fear¬ 
lessly explore the interior of a hive, and even suffer bees to 
light upon them without being stung, exhale no vapor that 
meets their disapprobation. 

This is, probably, the whole secret and explanation of the 
supposed friendship or hostility of honey-bees. The perspira¬ 
tion of intemperate persons, as well as those excessively given 
to the consumption of tobacco, is laden, unknown to them¬ 
selves, with exceedingly offensive matter, which is quite as 
disgusting to those brought within the sphere of its emanation, 
as to the quick discrimination of honey-bees and wasps. 

Progressive Decomposition in Life. 

There is a constant, uninterrupted process of decomposition 
going on in every organ and tissue of the body of every living 
being. When a new particle is placed in position, an old one 
is removed. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


151 


There are hut three ways of throwing off effete, dead 
matter, viz., through the pores of the skin, the intestinal 
tube, and the bladder. To do this, the blood holds immense 
amounts of d&ris in solution. When long retained, physicians 
speak of a bad condition of the blood. Quacks, without 
knowing anything about it, harp incessantly on its impurity, 
and get rich on the sale of nostrums for its pmllication. 

Such medications are absurdities. It is ridiculous non¬ 
sense to prate, as these irresponsible speculators in health 
do, about pretending to physic the blood. It is as impossible 
to produce any such operation as it would be to bombard the 
sun. Charged, as that vital fluid must be always, with worn- 
out materials, which have served a purpose till all of value in 
them had been exhausted,—it is a natural process to be floated 
away, and nature will take care of herself without the aid of 
pseudo-medical specialists. 

Tonics, properly directed, may assist a debilitated invalid 
by giving vigor to some flagging organ, in this never-ceasing 
process of receiving, appropriating, and then setting at liberty 
that which ceases to be any longer of utility. 

Avoid one probable cause of indisposition, as far as possible, 
by breathing good air rather than foul, if just as readily 
obtained. 

Feather beds yield, in the atmosphere of a close room, a 
peculiar mephitic odor, traceable to a slow decomposition of 
the tubes of the feathers. Years are required, if no artificial 
efforts are made by severe kiln-drying or baking, before 
feathers lose that offensive character. Even after various 
expedients for airing them by drying, they re-imbibe mois¬ 
ture, and the old odor is again given off. 

Thus, the best directed efforts in purifying feathers are 
only temporary, and, therefore, they should be abandoned. It 


152 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


is just as injurious to be inhaling every night the impure air 
of a room in which a feather-bed putrefaction is progressing, 
as to. have the decaying carcase of a dead animal under the 
bed, from which sulphuretted hydrogen gas was escaping. 

In northern climates, where the progress of feather decom¬ 
position is slowly conducted, feather beds are common, and 
less to be dreaded than where the summers are long and hot. 
But they ought to be given up wholly and entirely, as they 
probably will be, with a more general diffusion of the prin¬ 
ciples of hygiene, the importance of which is liappily 
beginning to be understood. 

Even when the weather is cold, the heat of the body 
actually penetrates to the feathers, acting chemically in setting 
free an unpleasant odor, if the room is not well aired. Under 
any circumstances, those of delicate organizations, subjected 
to severe exposures which affect the lungs, should avoid 
feather beds. So should asthmatic people. Emanations from 
a feather pillow, even when the bed is of hair, or some other 
common material, will sometimes bring on a stricture of the 
bronchial tubes, so severe that the sufferer can scarcely draw 
in sufficient breath for sustaining life. Asthmatics should 
shun feathers in beds, bolsters, or pillows. 

Wool beds are admirable. They are warm, soft, and elastic. 
They have been objected to on account of being an animal 
product, as well as feathers. But, admitting that decomposi¬ 
tion must, of course, be the destiny of all animal matter, in 
whatever form it may be utilized, there is really no such 
cogent reason for rejecting wool as feathers. We like them, 
and recommend them for invalids of a spare habit. 

Uext, hair-mattresses, in universal use, while fresh and 
new, are delightful beds. But they are an animal product also, 
very likely to be preyed upon by minute insects which cut 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


153 


the hairs into hits much sooner than suspected. An old hair- 
mattress is a living sack of abominations, in which life, death, 
and successive generations of mites, too minute to be seen 
without a magnifier, undoubtedly give rise to eruptions, cuta¬ 
neous irritations, and perhaps unpleasant conditions of the 
mucous membrane of the lungs, from breathing air laden with 
matter escaping through the tick. 

Many a traveller has imbibed the seeds of death by sleep¬ 
ing on such kinds of beds in hotels. They would be gainers by 
sleeping on the floor, rather than recline on an old hair-mattress 
which may have been soaked with the offensive sweat products 
of a sick stranger the night before, or be in a state of slow 
chemical putridity, from which gases are given off that may 
generate disease which no medications could arrest. 

Frequent opening of the sacks, repicking and drying in 
open, brilliant smilight, and thoroughly drying beds of all 
kinds in hotels and boarding-houses, should be enforced under 
police inspection, as a measure for securing public health 
among other sanitary precautions so well received by the 
public. 

Cotton-wool beds have been introduced, but not very suc¬ 
cessfully. They mat and become extremely hard, soon losing 
all the elasticity they may have had at first. Besides, they 
imbibe moisture which is difficult to expel in such a thick mass. 

Within a few years, sponge beds have been introduced, 
which have their friends, especially among those interested in 
the sale of them. There has haidly been time to ascertain 
their true merits. If their elasticity, when chopped or torn 
into fragments, depends on being made supple with glycerine, 
by and by objections will be raised against them. However, 
they are not to be criticised unfavorably till more is known of 
the advantages they present. 


154 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


One of the latest and best yet presented for acceptance, is 
the' metallic. In appearance it is a wire tick, woven, or made 
of rings linked together, fastened by its edges to the inner 
margins of the bedstead. 

They are always clean and free from collections which 
attach to other beds. Being galvanized, they neither rust nor 
become dark-colored. Water beds, which were thought par¬ 
ticularly valuable for hospitals, have not been in general use. 
The metallic bed addresses itself to the commonsense of a 
very limited intelligence as valuable. A mattress is rarely 
required on them. A few thicknesses of soft woolen blankets 
are quite sufficient; they are soft and yielding to the form of 
the sleeper. In a word, they are admirable and appear destined 
to be extensively adopted wherever large numbers of beds are 
required in any one place—as on shipboard, hospitals, barracks, 
and hotels. Families ought to give them a decided preference. 

There is immense economy in them. Beside all the prop¬ 
erties found in other beds, of giving ease and comfort, they 
present none of the objections cited in reference to feathers, 
liair, wool, cotton, rattan, husks, or straw. 'No insects will ever 
burrow upon them;—and when injured or broken, or they 
become valueless for the purposes for which they were made, 
they may then be sold for old iron. 

In fitting up a private dwelling, the economy of the iron 
bed is apparent. They are the least objectionable; and the 
very best for young persons, especially children, because they 
would be perfectly free from moisture and vermin. Tliey can 
be set into any kind of bedstead, wood or iron, but iron should 
take the place of wooden bedsteads. It is the bed for women— 
incomparatively superior to any other kind in use. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


The Food oe Womei?'. 

Dietetics of tlie World—Every tiling Eaten—Difference of Taste—Habit— 
Sugar a Necessity—Economy of tlie Liver—Pork—By whom Avoided— 
Starch—Experiment with Honey Bees—Law of Life Illustrated—Fruits 
to be freely given to Children—Open-Air Exercise for Girls—A Bene¬ 
volent Citizen of Boston—Fish Excellent Food—And Why ? 

Every creeping thing, even disgusting insects, vermin, rep¬ 
tiles, lizards, and crawling ophidians, are used for human food. 
Of course, they are not appropriated for that purpose in civil¬ 
ized countries; but, with savages and barbarians, whatever will 
sustain life is greedily seized upon without reference to external 
appearances, habits, character, or flavor, ^^’ecessity compels 
many tribes to sustain themselves on food that would not have 
been selected from choice or a depraved taste, if anything else 
could be procured. 

Under such circumstances, it has not been discovered that 
those who feed thus promiscously and ofiensively, measured 
by the standard of civilization, are any more prone to sickness, 
or are shorter-lived, than gentlemen and ladies who dine 
sumptuously on roast beef and pudding. 

“ Slay and eat,” was a command to Peter, when the sheet 
was let down before his eyes, filled with all manner of strange 
forms. It is a maxim in law that circumstances alter cases. So 
it is in respect to diet. Our impressions respecting the whole¬ 
someness or unwholesomeness of particular kinds of food, are 
formed from the remarks, or likes and dislikes of those with 
whom, and among whom, our early associations were established. 


156 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


We are influenced, witliout being able to explain why, by wbat 
others say and are practising within the circle in which we are 
moving. Our social education, which is entirely independent 
of letters, books, or schools, is commenced and completed very 
early in the family. What we learn there abides with us ever 
after. We cannot emancipate ourselves from the errors thus 
imbibed, nor free ourselves from the cordon of responsibilities 
with which we feel ourselves surrounded, without violating 
moral laws on which both safety and happiness seem to 
depend. 

Nearly all we know upon the subject of food comes froni 
the experience of others, and rarely from our own. Had we 
been accustomed to swallows’-nest soups, a rich dish in China, we 
certainly should have had no prejudices to contend with in later 
years, were it served to us; but, never having tasted it, the very 
thought of such a singular preparation for the stomach is 
nauseating. Precisely so, also, in regard to that still more dis¬ 
gusting delicacy of almond-eyed races, 1)60116 d6 la rmr, a large, 
slimy, soft, hideous-looking sea-slug, held in the highest es¬ 
timation in aristocratic society throughout the whole of 
China. 

Sailors on a wreck have fed upon the decaying corpse of a 
starved companion, without any of those painful results which 
theoretically follow from eating putrescent food. Hungry 
Bedouins feast upon dried locusts; roaming savages of Africa 
satisfy a voracious appetite with a roasted boa-constrictor, or a 
baked monkey. A Mexican slaughters a cow for the sake of a 
dainty morsel, the half-grown calf, throwing away the beef of 
the mother, as too coarse and too common for a refined and cul¬ 
tivated gourmand. Stewed puppies were a choice preparation 
when Captain Cook discovered the Sandwich Islands. Fried 
eels, boiled snails, five-fingered Jacks, oysters, prawns, clams. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


167 


slirimps, etc., wHch belong to onr catalogue of modem eatables, 
are quite as objectionable, contemplated as awful-looking crea¬ 
tures, as many things we exclude from^ gustatory favor, on ac¬ 
count of their imagined bad qualities. 


PUTKIDITY. 

If chemical decomposition is not so far advanced as to de¬ 
stroy cohesion, no unfavorable effects result from eating any¬ 
thing that has once been alive. Those animals which have 
sacks of poison in them are excluded, as well as those that 
secrete an abominable fluid from particular glands, which, in 
both cases, are defences against their enemies. 

Pampered city gourmands keep venison till it becomes 
partially decayed, before it attains that delicious flavor which 
meets the approval of an aldermanic stomach. 

To those unaccustomed to that delicacy—a conversational 
theme of officials, dieted at the expense of taxpayers—such a 
meal would seem freighted with death in the pot, especially 
when a smoking quarter comes to the table, a perfect nuisance 
to uneducated oKactories. 

Overcome the pangs of hunger with whatever is of an animal 
origin, there are properties in it which a stomach fashions to 
meet the exigencies of the system. Ho carrion is too corrupt for 
some carnivorous beasts and birds. Contact with the gastric 
juice deprives it quickly of the taint, while the decaying softness 
of flesh is thus prepared for rapid digestion. 

Man has always been, and always will continue to sustain 
himself on a mixed aliment. 

Salt. 

The late Mr. Silvester Graham was a prominent vegetarian 


158 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


fanatic. He was even extremely prejudiced against salt. He 
could not abide it, and exerted his vocal skill in trying to con¬ 
vince silly old women, of both sexes, that eating salt was about 
equal to taking in deatti by grains. 

How supremely ridiculous to be at war with the law of 
necessity! There is not a treatise extant on health, held in 
esteem by competent scientific authorities, that does not admit, 
unequivocally, that common salt is found in all our tissues and 
fluids. 

We could not be what we are, or what we may be, without 
it. Salt is found in almost every article made use of as food, 
whether the newly-fledged school of ignorant physiological 
reformers approve of it or not. By the introduction of salt 
into the system, the blood globules are supposed to be sustained 
in their form, and prepared for the purposes of life. Even 
the tears we shed contain salt. We must be supplied 
wdth it. Hature, therefore, in anticipation of the necessities 
of all warm-blooded animals, was careful to introduce it 
into vegetables, and from them the flesh and fluids are kept 
supplied. 

There are conditions in which the supply from that source 
is not equal to the demands of the body. Where the quantity 
secured by plants and grasses in some latitudes is too small, the 
deficit is met for man by commerce. Buffaloes, deer, etc., in 
the primitive state of this-country, came in droves from great 
distances in the far West towards the, Atlantic where salt 
springs abounded, to obtain what instinct compelled them to 
seek; or suffer and die, if not found. 

Grass-feeding animals search for it in their wild state con¬ 
tinually. Whenever they discover a saline quality in water, 
that spot is not only remembered, but intelligence of its locality 
is extensively propagated and transmitted from one generation 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


I5y 

to anotlier. How that was accomplished without articulative 
language will ever remain as much of a paradox as the propa¬ 
gation of the intuition of birds to go South for winter quarters 
which is understood by the youngest of the flock for the 
first time leaving the neighborhood where they were reared, 
for a flight of one or two.thousand miles to an unknown 
region. 

The health of wild or domesticated animals imperiously 
demands salt. Some are so organized that what they obtain 
in their food is sufficient for them. The farmer feeds it 
out at stated periods to his stock. Timid horses may be 
caught with a handful, when nothing else would tempt 
them to yield up their liberty to become the slaves of their 
captors. 

Carnivorous animals, flesh-eaters exclusively, obtain in their 
prey just enough of the saline element to answer the physical 
needs of their organization. 

Anomalies. 

Ho two persons are constituted so nearly alike as to perfectly 
agree in their taste or appetency for food. One may object to 
pastry, while another loves it dearly. A small amount of meat 
sufiices for some, others have no relish for it at all. Yegetables 
are coveted exclusively by some individuals. In them are 
provided sugar, starch, gelatine, etc., required in the re¬ 
paration of their tissues. Thus, bread, in universal request, 
contains some, if not all, of those elements, and, therefore, 
each sustains himself on an article in which some, if not 
all, the life-sustaining properties exist, necessary for his pre¬ 
servation. 

Bread, by baking, is prepared for being converted into glu- 


160 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


cose soon after reaching the stomach. It is changed into a 
sweetish paste bj a vital chemical action. 

Sugar is indispensable. If the supply is too small from 
without, the liver, as set forth in another chapter, immediately 
manufactures enough to supply the deficit necessary in the 
economy of the individual. 


Affecting the Teeth. 

A common opinion prevails that sugar is injurious to the 
teeth. A grosser mistake was never propagated. Carious 
teeth, denuded of enamel, ache when sweets are in contact with 
the decaying surface; but the cause of the caries is due to 
other agencies, and not to sugar. 

Children crave it, and the universal desire for sweets gives 
employment to immense numbers of laborers in tropical coun¬ 
tries to meet the demands of those parts of the globe where it 
cannot be made. 

Wherever civilization has raised its standard, sugar becomes 
a staple commodity. How preposterous, then, to attempt turn¬ 
ing back the current, of trade, or interfering with the great 
movements of commercial activity, because, forsooth, some ad¬ 
dle-headed theorist wishes to immortalize himself by opposing 
constitutional tendencies of improved and improving humanity. 


SuGAE has Ignorant Enemies. 

Opposing the use of sugar and salt is simply to expose 
one’s imbecility, want of judgment, and limited views of na¬ 
ture’s unalterable laws. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


161 


Omnivorous. 

Teeth, stomach, and their auxiliary appendages are con¬ 
structed upon principles of relationship to secure perfect nutri¬ 
tion. Because men can subsist on a mixed -diet, is found their 
ability for traversing the globe from the tropics to the frozen 
regions of the poles. 

We go with impunity from arctic ice-fields to the burning 
sands of an African desert, through all extremes of climate, 
without apprehension of not being able to sustain ourselves on 
any kind of food which may be offered. JSTo animal could be 
transported through such diversified climates, and feed on 
diversified products as they might present, without perishing. 
They must have the element especially fitted to their organiza¬ 
tion. If that is not to be had, they perish. 

Swine, and some birds, to a limited extent, are omnivorous; 
still they cannot thrive when removed from their natural habi¬ 
tat, imless provided with food analogous to that in which they 
attain their highest development. 

Feathered tribes feed largely on insects, larvae, seeds, etc., 
which is a mixture of animal and vegetable food. Were it 
otherwise, in their periodical migrations sad consequences 
would follow. An omnivorous appetite can be accommodated 
in different localities, where animal and vegetable products 
abound, without impairing muscular force, or unfitting them 
for returning to such food as they subsist upon a part of the 
season North or South. 

Pork. 

Swine feed indifferently on flesh, vegetables, or garbage, 
without reference to its composition, even in a state of putre¬ 
factive fermentation. A knowledge of their habits may have 
11 


162 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


led to a prohibition of pork under the Mosaic dispensation. 
They have always been held as unclean, and, therefore, unsuit¬ 
able for human food, from a remote antiquity, by both Jews 
and Mahometans. 

Shaker communities in this country have uniformly ab¬ 
stained from pork. Trichinus spiralis, w'hich affects men, wo¬ 
men, and children, is traced directly to swine. Their minute 
eggs taken into the human stomach, or, indeed, any stomach, 
as far as we know to the contrary, resist the gastric juice; 
although it dissolves metals, their vitality resists its potency. 
Trichiuge reach the muscles, and the tapeworm keeps possession 
of the alimentary canal. 

Scrofula, which is an enlargement and tumefaction of 
the glands, is also believed to be aggravated, if not produced by 
pork. The term scrofula is derived from a word indicating 
filthiness. 

Shakers are remarkable for their fair skins, clear complex¬ 
ion, and exemption from scrofulous affections. They very 
rarely have either cutaneous blotches, discolorations, moles, or 
eruptions, which confirms them in the opinion, that they are 
right in excluding pork from their tables, and living swine 
from their farms. 

"When swine are fed, as they usually are in the vicinity of 
cities, and populous towns, on offal gathered in carts, the back¬ 
yard accumulations from kitchens, sour, decomposing, or offen¬ 
sive, no pains ever being taken to preserve such collections from 
passing into a stage wholly unfit for food, their fiesh becomes 
diseased, in consequence of being compelled to subsist on a 
vile hodge-podge—a perfect salmagundi of concentrated vileness. 

Raised, as they are in back settlements of the West, on 
mast, which they gather in their free rambles in the woods, or 
when stall-fed on sound corn, the pork is less objectionable, and 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


163 


not likely to be diseased. But it is safer never to use it, since 
it is difficult to decide in tlie market from whence it came. 

Ladies who are anxious to preserve their fair faces free 
from roughness, redness, eruptive pimples, and glandular 
enlargements about the neck, must shun pork. They can¬ 
not breakfast on sausages without running a greater risk than 
with a pork-steak; because they are usually made of scrapings 
of bones, or the poorest quality of pork, so compounded with 
pepper, lard, and pulverized lierbs, as to conceal the objection¬ 
able appearance or taint they would give out, were it not for 
salt, and the deceptive skill of the manufacturer. 

Smoked hams pass through processes wdiich are thought to 
destroy parasites burrowing in the best of them. By severe 
boiling or baking, minute eggs deposited in them are effectu¬ 
ally destroyed, so that in that form, if pork is at all allowable, 
is in a thoroughly cured and thoroughly cooked ham. Even 
when a long while smoked, if taken in sandwiches, raw—some¬ 
times practised—there is undoubted danger of being infected 
with trichinse and tape-worm eggs. 


Discoloration of the Skin. 

Moth-spots, those irregular yellow patches that appear on 
the chin, side of the nose, on the forehead, and near the ears of 
middle-aged women; irritable eruptions on the limbs, known 
as salt rheum; excess of dandruff on the head; moles, and 
spongy outgrowths,—are each and all of them aggravated by 
pork. 

Cooking exceedingly modifies food for being more easily 
and rapidly assimilated. Hard and unpalatable articles, in 
a raw state, are quite savory when subjected to culinary 


164 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


operations. But of all laboratories, the stomach is tlie most 
perfect. Yital chemistry is superior to art, and whatever 
enters the stomach is subjected both to mechanical and 
chemical influences, before the absorbents draw upon the 
mass for nutriment. 

Fukthek Obseevations on Sugar. 

Sugar is an ingredient of most plants, roots, fruits, and 
grains on which animals subsist. So acute is the sense of 
smell in quadrupeds, especially the wild ones—and always 
active in the domesticated, as horses, oxen, deer, sheep, and 
goats—they select, with extreme care and accuracy, only such 
vegetables as yield it. 

It is for our interest, as it is for the promotion of indi¬ 
vidual and public health, to cultivate plants and roots for 
our domesticated animals that contain the largest per cenS 
of saccharine matter. Hence, beets, carrots, and turnips are 
excellent for them. 

We have nothing to do with commercial interests in these 
deliberations. Beference is simpl}^ made to those products 
that have an influence on individual health. 

Next to sugar, in the order of dietetic indispensables, are 
the cereals. 

Starch passes through several interesting stages before it 
yields those elements on which its nutritive properties depend. 
Flour is first made into dough, and by baking is changed 
so materially, as to be wholly unlike its appearance either in 
flour or dough. Both in sapidity and in quality for the sup¬ 
port of life, the processes through which it passes from the mill to 
leaving the oven, are remarkably curious; yet so common 
and familiar, a thought is never bestowed upon the subject 
except by teachers or writers on the phenomena of digestion. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


165 


If compelled to subsist upon any one article exclusively, 
even if it contains sugar, it ceases ’to be serviceable to man, 
but most of the animals live in excellent health through their 
whole allotted lifetime, as regulated by the law of limitation, 
on one kind of food. 

Our food must be frequently changed, or compounded 
with different ingredients. Dogs, cats, and, indeed, all the 
carnivorous animals, are quite independent of sugar from 
plants or fruits, all that they require being manufactured 
within their own bodies. If they are fed on sugar a little 
time the relish for it soon subsides, and they lose flesh, 
become feeble, and die. 

The following table shows the amount of sugar in fruits and 
grains, with which we are most familiar, l^ature has made 
ample provision for the necessities of those whose organization 
requires it. 

In one hundred parts, sugar is in the following proportion : 


Figs.. 


Wheat Flour. 

...5.30 to 48 

Cherries. 

..18.13 

Rye Meal. 

...3.38 

Peaches. 

.16.45 

Indian Meal.. 

...1.45 

Pears. 

.11.53 

Peas. 

.. .3.00 

Tamarinds. 

.12 50 

Cow’s Milk. 

.. 4.77 

Beets. 

.9.00 

Human Milk. 

.. .5.50 

Barley. 

. 5.31 



Fruits abound more in sugar 

than grain, but the latter fur- 


nishes starch. We cannot subsist on either alone, so well or so 
long as when compounded with other materials. 

There is an inborn love for sweets and oily food which can¬ 
not be overcome by any system of discipline, so that the indi¬ 
vidual will not indulge in them when opportunity presents. 

Bees fed on pure sugar refuse, for a few days, to forage 
among flowers. That, however, is only temporary, as we have 















166 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


often repeated tlie experiment, and found that, after the sjrup 
had been mixed in the honey-pouch of the bees, with the secre¬ 
tions of that organ, it lost its fluidity by evaporation, and left 
dry sugar in the cell. The bees immediately w’ent earnestly to 
work, with united force, on discovering the appearance of things, 
and carried it all out of the hive, grain by grain, and then 
resumed their accustomed avocation in the fields. 

When pigs are fed exclusively on boiled potatoes, though 
rich in starch, they fatten slowly, because no oily material is 
present. By simply mixing milk with potatoes or corn-meal, 
seeds or nuts, the fattening process is vastly more rapid. 

Cooking Food foe Animals. 

^Nothing is gained for domesticated animals by cooking their 
food. Cows, fed on warm swill, still-house waste, macerated 
hay; or swine, urged on to excessive fatness by confinement and 
cooked food, have ulcerations-of the liver, and a bad state of the 
tissues. Measly pork is a disease of the cellular texture, and, 
therefore, wholly unsuitable for the table, however disguised by 
pepper in sausage-meat, or bacon. When Majendie rationed dogs 
wholly on starch or sugar, they died unexpectedly soon. Butter 
or lard, fed to them exclusively, was equally fatal. 

A duck fed entirely on butter, at the rate of 1,350 to 1,500 
grains daily, died in three weeks. On examination, the butter 
was oozing from all parts of the bird’s body. Even the 
feathers were saturated with it, and the odor was excessively 
nauseous and ofiensive. 

Waenings against Vegetaeian Refoems. 

The lessons taught in these experiments are detached evi¬ 
dences of a fundamental law of life, which cannot be set aside. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


167 


Persevering attempts of vegetarian reformers to convert men 
and women to their theories, propped np bj the representations 
of the saving to be realized by returning to acorns, never have 
succeeded. Every little while a new aspirant for fame springs 
into transitory notice, to melt away under the sunshine of rea¬ 
son. There is no lack of converts when a new dietetic doctrine 
is first announced. There is a kind of romance in subsisting on 
next to nothing. Instead of needlessly wasting precious hours 
of a short existence in roasting legs of mutton, making pancakes 
and pudding, the whole twenty-four devoted to rejoicings over 
a glorious emancipation from the restraints and refinements of 
a burdensome civilization, is more poetical than profitable. 
With all the enthusiasm tvhich usually characterizes the ardor 
of new disciples to any ultra proposition, the vegetarians fall 
from grace, and ultimately sin against arguments that were 
plausible enough at first, by returning to their former habits of 
living like sensible beings, in conformity to the usages of society 
in which their destiny is cast. 

How ridiculous to attempt reasoning men and women 
into a conviction that their five special senses are not to be 
gratified, because it is displeasing to their Creator to indulge 
in anything he has bountifully supplied, simply as temptations, 
but not for consumption. 

Of all modern reformers, vegetarians have the most dis¬ 
couraging prospect of success. It is recorded that Paracelsus 
prided liimseM in having discovered the true elixir of life. It 
was an expensive preparation which only kings could purchase, 
in expectation of living and ruling for ever on earth. While 
glorying in his pride, that his researches in occult science had 
terminated so favorably, he died with a bottle of his life-pre¬ 
server in his pocket, at the age of forty! 


168 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


On What should we Subsist? 

!Not waiting for an eclio to answer tlie question, reason 
says, whatever relishes. Any arbitrary system that prescribes 
positive rules and articles, to the exclusion of all others, must 
be wrong. 

Dyspepsia was never cured by a spare diet. The false but 
fashionable direction for these whining, complaining, gaunt 
appendages of society, who are dying of indigestion, is the sure 
way of hastening their departure to that bourne from whence 
no traveller returns. 

Dyspeptic invalids, besides slowly starving themselves in 
the midst of inviting plenty, pretty uniformly are all the while 
under medical treatment which is not required. 

Assisting nature instead of thwarting her behests, by faring 
sumptuously every day on the bounties a kind Providence 
provides, offers a far better prospect of relief and a speedier 
restoration, than the slow, miserably wasting-away course 
usually pursued by intelligent sufferers^ 

This method of treating dyspepsia, the disease of comfort¬ 
able circumstances, is no violation of the rational laws of 
health. Meet the malady with appropriate nutrition. Food 
for dyspeptics must be neither too fine nor concentrated, but a 
generous variety and of the best quality. 

Those poor men and women who rarely gratify their 
palates with rich preparations which greet the uncertain ap¬ 
petites of the rich, are exempt from their peculiar sufferings. 

Laboring people rarely ever have a symptom of that bane 
of pecuniary independence,—dyspepsia. They sleep soundly, 
and awake refreshed. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


1G9 


Teuits. 

Friiits should be more freely used. Apples, especially, are 
exceedingly grateful to most persons. They may be cooked 
in many wa^^s for the table, contributing largely to good living. 
Simply baked, they are excellent food, and, if eaten freely with 
every meal, act very beneficially on the stomach. 

Fruit-eaters have health. Apples, pears, plums, peaches, 
berries, and, lastly, melons, may be eaten with impunity, if 
fully ripe. Children should not be denied, but allowed to revel 
in all the fruits in their season. They meet certain conditions, 
and, if withheld, the danger is far greater by a denial than from 
surfeit. 

Parents are quite apt to limit children in the amount as 
well as the kind of fruit, on a presumptive theory of their own, 
that this or that would be injurious. 

That is altogether a mistake. Crude fruits do derange the 
bowels, and produce disastrous consequences. But from ripe, mi- 
less they engorge themselves beyond the capacity of the stomach, 
no harm need be apprehended. Give children all the fruit 
they want. If it were not proper for them, they would not 
manifest an insatiable relish for it. 

ClDEE. 

When cider was a table beverage all over the apple regions 
of the Eastern States, forty or fifty years ago, there was a higher 
standard of family health than in these temperance times. 
When the temperance reformation was inaugurated, cider was 
anathematized as vulgar; besides, its tendency was to stimulate, 
and, therefore, it must be dropped. It disappeared, and reap¬ 
peared in the form of apple brandy. After the denouncement 

of homely, honest cider, which facilitated digestion, and kept 

11 * 


170 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


up the strength of those hardy men who laid the foundation for 
the agricultural beauty and wealth of New England, dyspepsia 
made its appearance. 

In those good old times, when honest men dealt honorably, 
cultivated their farms, paid their taxes, and brought up their 
children to respect all laws, divine and human, physicians were 
rarely called to their families. When the cider went, dyspepsia 
came in at the opposite door. 

Malic acid facilitates digestion, without leaving any of those 
bad effects which follow the use of distilled liquors. Cider 
refreshes without leaving a sensation of lassitude, or disturbing 
the nervous system,—taken, as was formerly the custom, with 
dinner and in the field. 

There were, occasionally, hardened old cider-drinkers, who 
took it immoderately, so as to be remarked upon as simply 
ridiculous, but drunkards are a later race. They came into 
notoriety with the multiplication of distilleries and the un¬ 
popularity of cider. 

Physicians are guilty of a great moral wrong, by encour¬ 
aging the use of whiskey, the curse of this magnificent country, 
where man alone is vile. Were dyspeptics to adopt cider as a 
diluent of their food, and totally abstain from tea, coffee, and, 
above all, whiskey, brandy, and wines, they could not be worse 
for it, and might regain their health. 

There must be caution in the purchase of what is sold for 
cider. It is now manufactured extensively out of anything but 
apples. It is sold under the name of champagne cider, and 
that, too, is an outrageous imposition, and a dangerous com¬ 
pound for invalids. 

The true medicinal cider—that which a dyspeptic lady or 
gentleman might take by the tumbler-full several times a day— 
should be such as is put up in barrels by the farmer in the inte- 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


171 


rior, who is ignorant of the cheating ways of trade. Drawn 
from the barrel as it is to be used, and never permitted to stand 
till it becomes stale and loses its effervescent smartness, it will 
accomplisli all that is claimed for it in this plea. 

In these generalizations, in reference to a very common con¬ 
dition of ladies of middle age, and sometimes in young ladies 
whose lives have been too artificial, we have urged a new way 
of meeting their thin, shadowy forms, pale faces, attenuated 
arms, flat chests, hollow cheeks, and lassitude. Exercise on 
foot, indulge in luscious fruits, take less tea and. concentrated 
food, and, by all means, patronize good, fresh, effervescing 
cider. The farmer’s daughter escapes dyspepsia till she resides 
in a city where physicians are as plenty as lamp-posts, but not 
always as useful in showing the way. 

Exercises. 

Proper exercise in the open air, which has been urgently re¬ 
commended in these pages ; an elastic, light bed, in a properly 
ventilated dormitory; early rising, if the lady has no further 
inclination for sleep; occupation alternating with agreeable 
amusements in the society of friends, or books; and always 
keeping physicians and drugs so distant as to be seen only 
through a telescope,—would bring feeble women, and pale, slen¬ 
der, drooping girls into the fold of Hygeia. Women have 
great need for making an effort, for they not only have very 
much degenerated, but they are further deteriorating, especially 
in cities. 

Eesolve to rise above indolence; and instead of reclining 
in an easy chair, with an India shawl over the shoulders, occa¬ 
sionally tasting with a teaspoon some delicacy, and when the 
clock strikes, very punctually taking either drops or pills—dis¬ 
card the whole of them. 


172 


THE WAYS OP WOMEN. 


Arouse from the insidious lethargy that holds you in its 
fblds, and face the breezes on foot many times in twenty-four 
hours. When fatigued by long walks, take a refreshing nap; 
next some substantial refreshment, and at reasonable inter¬ 
vals, repeat the exercise; when the weather is unfavorable, over¬ 
see the house, look into the larder, calculate what will relish 
for next day’s dinner. 

Timing Food to the Season. 

Fruits come to maturity at precisely the period when they 
are most serviceable. In their perfection, when their juices are 
fresh, and grateful to the palate, the system is immensely bene¬ 
fited by a free use of them. It is not material whether a peach, 
a melon, or a cluster of grapes, is taken at break of day, with 
breakfast, at noon, night or midnight. When the stomach 
craves them, it is the time to feast upon them. Still it is her¬ 
alded from sources respected as oracular, by those who never 
think for themselves, the eating of fruit should almost be regu¬ 
lated by statute law. 

Those persons for whom no one seems to care, those who 
get what they can, and when they can, unrestrained by arbitrary 
rules in respect to living, suffer none of the predicted evils from 
satisfying their appetites at any hour. 

It is simply convenient to have specified hours for meals, 
.because an orderly system is introduced into the arrangements 
of a family. There is economy of time in having regular hours 
for all employments. An established habit of dining or sup¬ 
ping at any particular hour, educates the stomach for that 
period. Any marked deviations from a habit disturb its func¬ 
tions, simply because the digestive organs are not ready, or hav¬ 
ing been so, and not being provided for, ruffles the temper, quick- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


173 


ens tlie pulse, and thereby produces nervous irritability. Fruits 
are of such inestimable value in the maintenance of individual 
as well as public liealth, efforts should be made, particularly in 
compact cities, to provide the poor with it on a scale of liber¬ 
ality never yet inaugurated. 

Poor children seize upon unripe and decayed remnants with 
a ravenous desire for them, as the season approaches for their 
appearance in market, which quickens the death record enor¬ 
mously ; but ripe fruits correct and fortify the system just when 
a summer atmosphere is charged with elements that require 
counteracting agencies abounding in ripe fruits. 

Benevolent schemes for ameliorating the circumstances of 
the poor will not be complete till some kind-hearted Croesus 
provides for supplying tliem with generous supplies from the 
advent of strawberries to the gathering of grapes in autumn. 

A benevolent Frenchman, Monsieur P. P. F. Degrand, left 
a handsome sum at his death, in Boston, the interest of which 
is to be annually expended in picture books for poor children. 
Besides gratifying the curiosity of the poor little recipients, 
who, otherwise, could never possess such a treasure as one of 
those instructive works appears in their estimation, they de¬ 
velop a love for reading, cultivate their taste, and bring. out 
the first desire for improvement. 

Fruits are always dear in this very fruitful country. The 
production has never been equal to the demand. Perhaps culti¬ 
vators never wish to have them, as it would interfere with their 
profits. It is certain, that an acre of ground devoted to the grow¬ 
ing of almost any kind of fruit would yield a far larger revenue 
than corn, potatoes, or grain, requiring a severe expenditure of 
labor in ploughing, hoeing, and harvesting. Why are not hund¬ 
reds of acres set with fruit trees where there is now not one ? 

The poor long for fruits they cannot have, on account of the 


174 : 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


price, disproportioned to tlieir means. They barely procure 
what are called necessaries—which means beef, pork, etc.; but 
it may be positively affirmed that fruit is quite as necessary, and 
far more important to them in their season. 

A relish for fruits is not an acquired one, but born with us 
—and for the purpose of introducing acids, saccharine juices, 
and delicious flavors into the system. 

Farmers! raise more fruit, and let the rich distribute it gener¬ 
ously in tenement-house, cellars, shanties,—indeed, everywhere, 
in lanes and fllthy streets, where the poor are doomed to reside. 
It would arrest diseases, it would relieve suflerings, meet the 
urgent demands of the sick and feeble, and stimulate tliem to 
efforts for improving their circumstances. 

Many imperfections in our civilization might be corrected, 
politically and morally. We are a confederacy of meat-eaters, 
without much regard to its quality or quantity. We all con¬ 
sume too much meat. Once a day is enough in this climate. 

Fruit-raisers are vehement in their assertions that it is not 
only an unremunerative branch of industry, but there is also a 
danger of over-stocking the market. There is not the slightest 
prospect of overdoing the business. Since the process of pre¬ 
serving fruit is thoroughly understood, not a peach need be 
lost, or a pear allowed to decay. The whole world over, they 
are regarded as luxuries, and have a sure sale. If there is any¬ 
thing to be apprehended unfavorable to the fruit-growers’ in¬ 
terest, it is that his avarice may urge him to ask more than they 
are worth. Fruit-extortioners require rebuking. 

To BE Encouraged. 

As eminently contributing to the stability of public health, 
and to the every-day comfort and improvement of the people, 
the use of fish and fruit should be encouraged and upheld by 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


175 


special laws. In Cliina, tlie consumption of fisli is amazing; 
and nowhere is the public health, considering the denseness ot 
the population, more satisfactory. If rice and fish, the staples 
of life there, are reasons why neither plagues nor endemics are 
common, they might enter more freely into our own dietary 
with manifest advantage. Tlie Chinese are strong, well de¬ 
veloped, and possess extraordinary powers of endurance. 
True, they require prodigious quanties of rice twice a day, 
fish being scarcely more than a savory relish, although they 
consider it essential to strength and vigor. 

An educated Chinese brain, even under their objectionable 
civilization, is abundantly able to cope with, the best diplo¬ 
matic skill of Europe. Much as they are underrated, their 
government antedates the oldest in Europe by thousands of 
years; and many of the useful arts and important discoveries— 
pillars on which the proud edifice of modern institutions are 
sustained—of incalculable importance to progressive humanity, 
actually originated among those Mongolians, whom we are 
taught to believe our intellectual inferiors. We may not 
drink as much tea, stow away as much rice at a meal, or be 
as well satisfied with fish at every meal, yet they are by no 
means to be undervalued for their attainments in art or 
government. Both are venerable for age. 

Too MUCH Meat. 

Women with us consume too much meat—the .result of a 
mistake in the beginning. Neither the severity of the climate, 
nor the necessities of their systems, require it in large 
quantities. 

Their indoor employments, with few exceptions, are such, 
a lighter and more easily digested food than meats would be 
better for them. Farinaceous articles, including an abundance 


176 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


of fruit, fresli, cooked, or preserved, should b'e provided in all 
well-regulated families, especially wliere there are female chil¬ 
dren. Eggs and fish are proper, and avoiding pork always. 
Mutton is the most wholesome next to good beef. Sparkling 
eyes, an elastic step, elegant figures, a good temper, and 
quiet deportment, depend essentially on the food we are 
habitually consuming. 

Irritability,—a desponding, dissatisfied state of mind, which 
gives a false coloring to nature, and makes women dissatisfied 
with themselves, and with all with whom they associate,—may 
be often traced to their improper food. 

It is their mission to keep man, who is prone to displays 
of passion and outbursts of rage, in a bearable condition, by 
their talismanic presence. They would not be bearable even to 
one another, were it not for the magnetic influence of woman, 
who is the agent of all civilization, and certainly, of refinement 
and morality. Even when silent, she rules the storms of 
human fury, and calms the savage exhibitions of wrath in 
men, by the charms of her character. 

To succeed, she must neither dine on pork, nor inflame her 
blood with heavy, indigestible aliments. 

Finally, less animal food than is now customary; abstinence 
from all heating, fiery drinks, which are never necessary for 
man or woman; varying the diet, so as not to become weary 
of any particular article or composition,—would improve us. 
It would give young growing girls a robust constitution, provided 
there is no limitation to out-door freedom. With such simple 
means, the women of this country may be regenerated; and 
their successors, the mothers of the coming men of renown, 
would be sound in body and strong in mind. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


iKTEEiq’AL StRUCTUKE OF WOMEK. 

Character of the Chest—Compression of Blood-vessels—Healthy Children— 
Their Management—Scheme of the Circulation—Elfects of Anger— 
The Heart—Its Irritability—Origin of its Pover—Sudden Death—Be 
Moderate—Dropsical Effusions. 

There is no apparent difference in the form or functions of 
the viscera of the chest, or in the structure of the stomach and 
its appendages, in men and women. 

In consequence of the cramped position of the inferior ribs, 
forced mechanicaUy out of the line of natural incurvation by 
stays, it is possible that the shape of the lower portion of the 
lungs might give a clue to the*sex to which they belonged, in 
a judicial inquiry where that point was a question. 

The chests of young ladies in our time, and in all Christian 
countries in which there is an upper class, are trained with 
quite as much care as gardeners bestow upon running vines to 
give them direction. An experimental effort, to determine 
from whence a pair of lungs were taken, might be decided by 
the distortion of the bones about the cavity from which they 
were detached. On the supposition that no interference with 
the bones had ever occurred, neither exterior nor interior struc¬ 
tural appearances would be anj guide in reference to the sex of 
the individual. 

It is barely within the limits of possibility that a great crime 
might require a decision in answer to a judicial question. Were 

these the lungs of a man or a woman ? A key for unlocking a 

12 


178 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


mystery is to be found by a simple examination of tlie inferior 
margins of the lobes. 

In a normally developed cbest there is breadth at the base; 
whereas, in artificially shaped ones, the lower part, which should 
be roomy, is contracted, which obliges the lungs to conform to 
the cavity in which they are lodged. 

The lungs must necessarily expand with each inhalation of 
air. If the pulmonary cells are unnaturally small in one section 
of the lobes, others beyond the sphere of restraint, by reason of 
outside bands, will enlarge to abnormal dimensions higher up. 
Surface is essential for the aeration of the blood. If that process 
is imperfectly accomplished, vitality is either quickly reduced, 
or may never have been fully developed after the body was 
fashionably put into harness. 

A pale skin, feebleness, unsound health, are the penalties 
for tampering with such delicately organized tissues as enter 
into the composition of the lungs. 

Between the extremities of the superior ribs—seven in 
number on each side—the breast-bone, in children, is made up 
of several distinct pieces. Through all the early periods of 
childhood, it may be readily forced from its normal relations 
by keeping up a continual pressure in front. The sternum, or 
breast-bone, is simply a front wall, while the ribs and spine are 
lateral and posterior protections of the contents of the pleural 
cavities. 

Modifying the Chest. 

Being never firmly ossified, even in advanced age, in females, 
it is always in danger of being injured by their modes of dress¬ 
ing. Women can be remodeled,.on coming from the studios of 
nature, under the plastic hand of the goddess of fashion, to 
almost any pattern. 


THE WELL FORMED CHEST, 


By comparing the accompanjnng plan of a well developed and naturally propor¬ 
tioned female chest, with the frightful skeleton opposite page 66, the difference is 
strikingly apparent. Here is breadth,—space for the lungs to act in; and the short 
ribs are thrown outwardly, instead of being curved and twisted down towards the 
spine, by which ample space is afforded for the free action of all those organs, 
which in the other frame, were too small to sustain life. The first may be regarded 
as the exact shape and figure of a short lived female ; and this may be contempla¬ 
ted as an equally true model of the frame of another, who, so far as life depends 
upon a well-formed body, would live to a good old age. 








'» • 





-A 



• ' \ 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


179 

Bj lacing the chest in nnelastic corsets the form is mate¬ 
rially changed, always to the injury of the individual. But 
that seems not of the slightest consequence, since to live, 
breathe, and have a vulgar form, which the Divine Artist gave 
to humanity, has been entirely ignored by our refined, chaste 
conceptions of what female humanity should be, to meet the 
approval of cultivated taste. 

The lower pendant extremity of the breast-bone {zypJioid 
cartilage) is quite flexible. If garments are tightly fitted to a 
waist already warped inwardly, to diminish its transverse dia¬ 
meter, the cartilaginous point is forced further inwardly, so as 
to encroach on organs lying directly behind. 

Some years ago, in the course of daily lectures in a school 
of medicine, it was discovered, incidentally, that the skin wag 
abraded and extremely red over the pit of the stomach of the 
female subject upon the table. 

Evidently, there had been severe blisterings, which indi¬ 
cated some local difficulty that external irritants were in¬ 
tended to relieve. A history of the case could not be obtained. • 
An exploration revealed the fact that the lower end .of the 
breast-bone had been so pressed upon by force from without, as 
to bend it almost at a right angle. It was actually pricking, 
as it were, perpetually. Internal inflammation resulted, and 
no doubt the patient had suffered long and intensely from a 
deep-seated pain which no treatment, could relieve,—it being, 
literally, a thorn in the flesh. 

Both the pancreas and considerable of a patch of the under 
surface of the diaphragm had become diseased by being near 
the engorged vessels. 

This illustrates the danger that may ensue by interfering 
with a living body regularly and harmoniously performing its 
functions. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Igo 

It is quite familiar to surgeons tliat wlien an artery is 
enlarged into an aneurism, if one side of it touches a bone, 
gradually the solid structure will be removed by absorption 
at the point of contact. 

Bones will not resist continued pressure without exhibiting 
disturbance. Therefore all appliances unfortunately imagined 
to improve the female form, even when quite gently com¬ 
menced on the chest, are positively reprehensible. Girding 
the chest when the bones are imperfectly ossified, is extremely 
dangerous. 

Swathing the- frail, imperfectly made bones of newly-born 
children with bandages, rollers, or bands, a custom of almost 
universal practice even among intelligent mothers, on the 
mistaken idea that their backs require some support,—is worse 
than barbarism. 

It is as absurd to swathe a new-born babe as the Indian 
custom of lashing them to a piece of bark, to make them 
straight. Civilized cruelty inflicted on an unresisting infant 
is a crime, which, in a more advanced state of civilization, may 
become an offence recognizable by the law. 

Besides irritation of the skin, many a suffering child has 
been sent screaming with torments into eternity through the 
well-meaning intentions of an affectionate mother, who would 
have felt herself guilty of the sin of neglect had she failed to 
begin to make her child beautiful while its body was flexible 
and yielding. 

Elastic flannel bandages, especially made to be easy, are 
abominable inventions. Cotton swathes, or any other band¬ 
aging, is a dreadful source of annoyance and misery to a 
nursing babe, of which they would loudly complain in tones 
far louder than crying, if they could speak of their misery. 

Swathed from their arm-pits to their hips compresses the 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


181 


blood-vessels; prevents the action of muscles that ought to be 
continually exercised, and must in the nature of things be a 
torment an adult would not submit to, even in stays, vrere it not 
for tHe impression that those who are thus self-tormented, are 
making their forms more agreeable objects for other eyes to 
contemplate. 


Muscular Freedom . 

Perfect freedom of body should be granted the child from 
birth. FTo restraints, not absolutely necessary for cleanliness, 
should be imposed. Poor little things, they are dosed with 
nauseous drugs, made to swallow composing-drops unwillingly, 
and killed by well-intended measures for improving their 
forms. All the anxieties and difficulties attending the rearing 
of children, might be avoided by simply letting them alone. 
The poor raise large families successfully, because they have 
no time to spare in killing them by attempts to undo what 
nature will do, if not meddled with while engaged in perfect¬ 
ing her beautiful designs. 

Children come into* the world with all the machinery of 
organic life new and perfect. The mother’s milk, which is their 
due, and not that of a hired nurse, contains precisely the 
materials for increasing the dimensions of the whole system and 
providing nourishment for each individual organ. Civilization, 
however, is not satisfied with appearances, and immediately 
commences schemes for improvement. 

Like some unskilled artisans who, overrating their own 
acquirements, often spoil what they vainly attempt to improve, 
—so children that would have lived are victims to rude attempts 
to better what the Creator pronounced good when it left the 
laboratory, where it was fashioned in marvellous beauty and 
perfection. 


182 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Infantile bandaging, commenced when tlie bones are ductile, 
is the beginning, oftentimes, of a narrow chest, which would 
have had ample dimensions, had it not been tampered with 
before the framework of the skeleton expanded into full pro¬ 
portions. This civilized cruelty is the origin of an enfeebled 
constitution. If no interference were practised with a deter¬ 
mination to alter the shape which would have been developed, 
the physical condition of woman would not be so generally 
defective as it is now known to be. 

Were children from the first permitted to breathe uncon¬ 
taminated air, by being removed from the too frequently 
vitiated atmosphere of an over-warmed nursery, nurtured on the 
mother’s milk, instead of that of another woman’s, whose phy¬ 
sical and moral condition are entirely different* the child w^ould 
present, in all its after-life, a very different condition. Milk 
from another source, although secreted in the breast of a healthy 
nurse, may introduce into the structure of the babe elements 
that immensely modify its original constitutional circumstances. 


A Mother should Nurse her own Children. 

Here is the gist of the whole matter. If we are to have 
beautiful and healthy children, the mother must nurse her own 
babes. Mery many mothers who have no milk for days, or even 
weeks after confinement, under the impression that no secretion 
will take place, abandon attempts to promote it, too hastily. By 
repeated solicitations, allowing the infant to draw, as though 
the lactic fiow were intact, stimulates the gland, so that milk 
rarely fails to come by patient perseverance. 

Fresh cow’s milk, especially that from a young animal 
having a calf, is safer to feed the infant upon till it appears in 
the fountain prepared for its secretion, than to furnish it from a 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 183 

wet-nurse, whose age, temperament, mental, physical, and even 
muscular condition are totally unlike those of the mother. 

Leave off all swathes and bandages: that is the second im¬ 
portant lesson to be remembered. Trotting young children 
violently, when they cry, to quiet them, is a fearfully repre¬ 
hensible practice. Their frail bodies cannot bear such violence 
without endangering internal organs, by actually tearing away 
their attachments, and producing inflammations. Indeed, it is 
always hazardous to throw them about in the lap, as customary 
with nurses, without the slightest reference to their tender age 
and unflnished anatomy. 

By allowing infants to lie on soft beds most of the time, till 
their spines are sufficiently strong to support them in a sitting 
posture with their playthings, in very loose clothing, un¬ 
smothered, in airy rooms, always sleeping alone, the next 
generation of women in the United States would be such beings 
as Nature intended,—^fair, sound, and intellectual. 


CHAPTEK XY. 


OVEE-WOEKING THE HeAET. 

Value of Best—Heart’s Irritabilty—Arteries—Circulation—Influence. 

Sudden emotions derange the functions of the heart. Xo 
persons are more familiarly conversant with the effects of pain¬ 
ful or pleasurable emotions, or the extraordinary influence of 
sad or joyful intelligence, than woman. 

Every one’s experience furnishes conclusive evidence of the 
reflex influence of good or bad news, and the varying pulsations 
of the heart, resulting from mental impressions. When two 
beats are made in consequence of some sudden emotion, the 
contractility of the organ being quickened to perform twice the 
service it usually does in the same measure of time, it obviously 
tend to its injury. 

In lesions, engorgements, abnormal depositions of fat within 
the pericardium, or the valves becoming slightly ossified, so 
that the auricles and ventricles are imperfectly closed, the ad¬ 
ministration of medicine is nearly useless. 

How is it possible that a drug in the stomach, however 
potent in character, can remove a mechanical obstruction 
within the cavity of the heart ? 

Pather than retire from the turmoils of business, or fash¬ 
ionable excitements, or striving for social or political positions, 
diseases of the heart are multiplying. They are not produced 
by ordinary circumstances, but are generally the result of ex¬ 
cessive effort in some direction for the attainment of an object, 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


185 


worthy or unworthy, which accelerated the activity of the 
heart,—a forcing engine on which life depends,—beyond its ca¬ 
pacity. 'No permanent relief need be expected in the shop of 
an apothecary. There is no balm in Gilead for an enlarged 
heart, made so by compelling it to labor too much, or too long, 
at a rate beyond the motion it has when no unnatural stimulus 
has hastened its systole and diastole,—a succession of relaxa¬ 
tions and contractions, which are natural and safe. Unnatural 
movements endanger its mechanism, especially if often re¬ 
peated. 

Value oe Best. 

Best is a far better remedy for any irregularity in the cir¬ 
culation than medicine. Bemoval from the scene of excite¬ 
ment, and being out of the way, and beyond the sphere of asso¬ 
ciations or things which recall emotions that quicken the 
heart’s action, is the true way of giving relief when diseased. 

Where there are no extraordinary occurrences, but each day 
is a calm reproduction of the past—where broad fields, grazing 
herds, twittering songsters in the trees, and outgushing flow¬ 
ers invite admiration, and the contemplation of nature in the 
quietude of rural life, there should patients with irregularities 
of the heart take up their residence. 

It requires a nice power of discrimination to determine 
whether a palpitation is caused by some interior difficulty, as 
for example, a thickening of the margins of the valves, ossifi¬ 
cation, obstruction in the coronary vessels, or arises from ner¬ 
vous debility. 

In the latter case, the muscular power runs on uncontrolled, 
when the nervous power is weak, or nearly exhausted. Thus, 
after great fatigue, cramp seizes the limbs, the muscles con¬ 
tract spasmodically and irregularly, simply in consequence of 


186 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


nervous exhaustion. Sleep, food, friction, and stimulants re¬ 
plenish the battery, and then the muscular force of the vol¬ 
untary cordage is perfectly subservient to volition again. 

The Heart’s Irritability. 

With an endowment of a kind of vitality peculiar, and, to 
some extent, independent of all connection with the body, beat¬ 
ing and throbbing when completely detached from the chest, 
the heart is a wonder in itself. It is the first to live and the 
last to die. 

Laid upon a table, unconnected by either nerves or vessels, 
the heart of a reptile will expand and contract by the touch of a 
pin. Though blood is its appropriate stimulus, it dies gradually, 
but may be partially revived by the introduction of air, or the 
point of a needle. 

The vital tenacity of the human heart is equally surprising. 
It will withstand violent assault, deep wounds in its substance, 
and encroachments of disease, far longer than would be sup¬ 
posed, were it not for revelations of morbid anatomy, which 
occasionally demonstrate under what strange mechanical de¬ 
rangements it can sustain life. Still it is a mortal machine, on 
the regularity of which depend life and health. 

When the heart fails prematurely under the pressure of 
undue excitement, death is an inevitable consequence, which 
neither skill nor science can avert. 

To determine the amount of derangement in the system, 
if any exists, physicians feel the pulse at the wrist, by pressing 
the radial artery against the bone. The number of beats there 
corresponds uniformly with those of the heart. Being tele¬ 
graphed through the fingers of the examiner, intelligence 
reaches the brain, where they are diligently compared with his 
watch. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN 


187 


One large vessel carries all the blood forced from the heart. 
By giving off branches, which ramify extensively and minutely, 
the most distant fibre receives a proper amount of the vital fluid. 


Arteries. 

Those intricately ramifying tubes, finer than hairs in their 
ultimate distribution, furnish blood from the centre to the whole 
circumference, in whichj held in solution, are properties for the 
growth and reparation of whatever it passes through, over, 
or among. 

When those soluble vitalizing elements have all been left 
along the track, according to the needs of each and every part, 
the blood then passes into the extremities of veins, by which it 
is collected to be returned to the light side of the heart. 

The blood goes out of the left ventricle, from the left side of 
the heart, of a rich red color, but it comes back to the other side 
of the heart, of a dark bluish color. 

When the ventricle is fully distended, the walls of the heart 
suddenly contract with a twisting motion of its fibres, forcing 
the bluish blood through the pulmonary artery into the lungs, 
where it is brought in contact with atmospheric air, from which, 
in the twinkling of an eye, it absorbs its oxygen, gives oflf car¬ 
bonic acid gas, and then plunges into the left side of the heart 
to repeat its rounds again. 

CiRCCJLATION. 

Thus the blood is going and coming unceasingly from the 
first pulsation the heart ever made in its elementary, unfinished 
condition m utero^ till its last beat, a death-kell at the close of 
life. 


188 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


When the heart pulsates too slowly, or too rapidly, the 
physician forms an opinion, decides upon the character of the 
disease for which his advice is sought. He ought to be so 
thoroughly instructed, the least deviation from a normal stand¬ 
ard of health may be quickly recognized. 

In this climate, ordinarily, the heart beats from about sixty-* 
five to seventy-eight strokes in a minute. Some, with the aspect 
of sound health, have only sixty, or even fewer, and there are 
others in equally sound condition, whose pulse habitually exceeds 
eighty. 

A pulse, however, varying through the whole twenty-four 
hours, according to the stimulant effects of food and drinks, 
does not indicate sickness. There may be a sudden alarm, 
through the acoustic nerve, the instantaneous apprehension of 
danger through the optic nerves by the sight of the edge of a 
precipice, a falling rock, an approaching wave, or terrific explo¬ 
sions of thunder, or the flashings of lightning in the sky, which 
may instantaneously increase the action of the heart to more 
than a hundred strokes. Through the nerves of sense, so 
great has been the shock that the heart has burst. 

Influence or Angek. 

Extreme paroxysms of anger are sometimes fatal by an ex¬ 
plosion of life, as it were. The heart resists spasmodic demands 
made upon it to empty its cavities, and bursts. Kents in its 
walls, which are almost instantaneous death, have often been 
found produced by extreme exhibitions of rage. It is always 
dangerous to indulge in unrestrained wrath, especially for 
women of a nervous sanguine temperament. 

With some, the pulse is preternaturally rapid. Others are 
equally remarkable for the moderation of the heart, always 
moving at a very nearly uniform rate. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


189 


Blood, which is a vital fluid, is driven through the arterial 
canals at an average velocity in health. It is neither hurried 
nor retarded by trivial circumstances. When the heart beats a 
hundred times in a minute, it is a sign something is wrong, if 
it continues for a considerable time to throb and labor thus 
actively. When by treatment that rapid action cannot be 
moderated, death’s messenger is in waiting. With all the 
poetry with which the human heart is invested, it is simply a 
forcing-pump of immense energy. Instead of being kept in 
motion by exterior stimuli, it contains within itself contractile 
fibres, which are obedient to the contact*of blood. Its presence 
in the interior of the organ calls into action a mass of winding 
muscular threads, whose combined contractile force is equal to 
the grip of a strong vice, in expelling the current that has just 
arrived. 

A relaxation succeeds the violent contraction of the walls. 
For an instant, those ever-working muscular filaments rest, 
then resume labor again. 


The Heakt a Double Foecing-Engine. 

More critically considered, we really possess two hearts. 
One of them belongs to the lungs, while the other is for the 
body. They are joined together, and, therefore, have the 
appearance of a single organ. Hature invariably economizes 
room. By uniting the two hearts, the necessity of having 
separate apartments was obviated, when one would answer all 
purposes. 

In some reptiles, the two hearts have been found separated. 
We have an indistinct recollection of having read of a case in 
which the two hearts were at considerable distance from each 
other, in a patient carried to an European hospital. 


190 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


One heart receives all the deteriorated blood, by which is 
understood that gathered up and brought to the right heart, 
having left its life-sustaining properties in passing through the 
body. Being again forced into the lungs by an immensely 
powerful forcing-pump, it there again imbibes oxygen from 
air waiting for it in the cellular structure of those mem¬ 
branous sacs. From thence it is again forced into the upper 
part of the left heart, on the left side of the chest, and next 
into its ventricle, more powerful as a forcing-engine than any 
of the others, which drives the living current into a single 
elastic tube, the aorta, to pursue its mission through the system 
again. 

The irritability of the heart, from the earliest embryotic 
condition to one hundred years—and in Henry Jenkins, one 
hundred and sixty years—is not well understood. 

Two French physiologists have announced the discovery, 
says report, of two nerves that have heretofore escaped the 
inquisitive researches of anatomists, creeping out from the side 
of the vertebral column, which ramify extensively in the 
tissues of the heart, and through their instrumentality the 
motor power is kept up. 

A certain Dr. Cyon, of France, has sent forth a learned 
dissertation on the heart’s innervation, explanatory of the 
function of those newly discovered cords. One of them is 
recognized as the accelerator, and the other the motor nerve. 

How it happens that a heart pulsates when severed from 
its connections entirely, for more than half an hour, makes the 
problem of its independent vitality more abstruse. 

Excitability. 

Asa people, we have a reputation for being always in haste. 
As a consequence of this hurrying propensity, both men and 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


191 


women wear tlieinselves out prematurely. Merchants are over¬ 
anxious to he rich; ladies, too, ambitious beyond reason, over¬ 
work their hearts. 

Sudden death from heart-disease is a common coroner’s 
report. Jrnles of inquests have not assumed the responsibility 
they would be justified in taking, by a verdict of over-excite¬ 
ment of the brain, or over-taxing the heart. 

Competition in trade, deferred hopes, unexpected disap¬ 
pointments, pecuniary losses, a reckless determination to' carry 
measures which are extremely hazardous, often resulting in 
disastrous failures, shock the nervous system by a reflex action 
upon an over-excited brain that recoils upon the heart. 

A familiar expression —hroken heart —is not inappropriate. 
They do break. Mental emotions may be so intensified as to 
produce paralysis of the heart. A fatal spasm of its muscular 
walls is induced from a sudden painful impression or fright. 
Sudden deaths from such causes cannot be reasonably doubted. 

A fearful penalty of a violation of a law of health, is when a 
person concentrates too much will-power suddenly. Eevenge or 
hate, while under the influence of stimulants or excessive politi¬ 
cal excitement, may end in instantaneous death from a spasm of 
the heart. When a dontraction is accomplished under such 
circumstances, it holds its grip, and death closes the scene. 
Sometimes there is a rent in the flesh of the heart, through 
which a gush of blood escapes into the heart-case,— 
dium^ and that is a death-lesion for which there is no relief. 

Moderation in legitimate pursuits should be encouraged. 
“ Be not too ardent ” is a caution to be remembered, especially by 
youthful, sprightly, passionate young ladies. 

Formerly, the heart was supposed to be the abode of moral 
sentiments. It has the credit of being open to amatory impres¬ 
sions, as the focus of the affections and the fountain of love. 


192 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 




When that idea was taught as a truth, the bowels were 
exultinglj referred to as the real seat of compassion! Both 
theories were found to be erroneous; but the mistake had been 
so long and extensively propagated in poetical fictions, in the 
language of all nations, the heart and bowels have been per¬ 
mitted to keep possession of those two attributes, and we con¬ 
tinue to appeal to the deep feelings of the heart, and the 
yearnings of the bowels. 

Women are not quite so much prone to the development of 
diseases of the heart as men, because they are generally less 
exposed to violent turmoils which wreck the constitution. 
They, happily, are removed from arenas of political strife, and 
from dissipations that make the blood boil. Tiiey never haunt 
drinking-saloons, those plague-spots of a city, nor carouse 
through the night in boisterous hilarity. They cannot, how¬ 
ever, bear up under assaults upon their reputation, nor heroically 
defy slanders, without reeling under their crushing weight. 
Innate pride, the strong power of innocence and a conscious¬ 
ness of doing no wrong, sustains them awhile under such 
assaults, but they give way at last. They have dropped dead 
from a sense of injustice. 

But women oftener rupture the heart by a paroxysm of 
dreadful rage, than from other causes. They have a safety- 
valve in a copious flood of tears. Under excitements that 
would explode life in some men, a woman is instantly relieved 
when the tears flow. They take off the tension. 

When the brain is once charged with blood, by an in¬ 
creased action of the heart, by reason of exasperation, carried 
in faster than it is carried away by veins, an apoplexy 
would probably follow, were it not for immediate relief 
in a hearty cry. 

Men breast a storm of passion better than women, but there 


I 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


193 


is no merit in it. They oppose whirlwinds with whirlwinds, 
and yield at last at the sight of a woman’s tears. 

Death from ossification of the valves or coronary arteries, 
those which immediately supply the heart for its own support, 
together with sudden paralysis, are far more frequent among 
men than women. Those maladies are on the increase. Mer¬ 
chants, bankers, speculators, and radical political leaders who 
meet with damaging rebuffs just as they are expecting to win 
the prize, are those who fall suddenly dead. 

Women have hearts preternaturally enlarged. They also 
are predisposed to have accumulations of fat around the organ, 
that impede its motions and mechanical regularity. Enlarged 
hearts may result from other causes, among which is excessive 
grief. 

Disappointments, in which the affections are deeply involved, 
may be a cause of diminished vitality. 

Dropsical effusions are apt to follow that state, accompanied 
by functional derangements. 

An intermitting pulse, with an occasional twinge in the 
region of the heart, indicates, generally, in women, nervous 
debility, which may be aggravated by mental excitements or 
continued apprehensions of a calamity. 

The reticence of women, their secretiveness, and the tenacity 
with which they conceal the causes of their unhappiness, when 
their pride is wounded or their preference slighted, obliges a 
physician to guess at causes very frequently. His prescriptions, 
under such circumstances, are random shots in the dark. 

13 


CHAPTEK XYL 


Their Lungs. 

Hereditary Consumption—Ventilation—Tobacco—Origin of Pulmonary 
Consumption—Not safe to doctor one’s self—Gymnastic Exercises— 
Changing Location—Contracted Chests—Resuscitation—What to Do and 
what to Avoid—Violation of General Laws of Health—Pleurisy Sus¬ 
pended—Not Cured. 

Women, oftener than men, do violence to their lungs. It 
may not be agreeable to be told they are habitually abusing 
those very essential organs. 

It is a melancholy reflection that the progress of pulmonary 
consumption in this beautiful country is largely due to a vice in 
dress, which interferes with the development of the chest. 

A residence in a crowded city, or, indeed, wlierever there is 
a dense population, is attended with some degree of peril in 
respect to the purity of the air. If it is mixed, and charged 
with noxious vapors, or there is a deficien’cy of oxygen, ani¬ 
mals breathing it cannot be in the good condition they would 
be in, in localities where no such vile elements were inhaled. 

Consumption is alarmingly hereditary. Sporadic cases are 
also increasing, induced by causes which might be avoided to 
some satisfactory extent, if the demands of fashion were not 
so extremely arbitrary. 

A sense of smell warns us of the bad quality of air in the 
vicinity of certain manufacturing establishments, such as gas¬ 
works ; bone-boiling nuisances ; slaughter-houses ; putrefying 
carcases; decomposing vegetables, or other sources of impurity 
that would be injurious if inhaled. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


195 


Our olfactory nerves are special sentinels, promptly announc¬ 
ing sources of offence, and giving timely warning that they may 
be avoided. 

Hereditaey Consumption. 

Hereditary consumption is a hopeless form of that dreadful 
malady. Those influences, or agencies which bring on inflam¬ 
mation of the lungs, are comparative!}’^ few, compared with the 
annual devastation of human life from transmitted sources, 
propagated in families from one generation to another. 

Ho sensible physician admits that pulmonary consumption 
is either infectious or contagious; while those knowing the 
least about the laws of disease firmly believe, as in Cuba, that 
it may actually be communicated by a touch- of the furniture, 
or air of an apartment in which a patient with that disease has 
died. Hence, a theory sometimes assumes the dignity of a fact, 
and ignorance is better received as authority than scientific in¬ 
telligence. 

Medical authors assume it to be a firmly established opin¬ 
ion, that pulmonary consumption is a concomitant of modern 
civilization. While our ancestors, in the United States, occu¬ 
pied ruder dwellings, through which the air traversed freely, 
and they subsisted on plainer and coarser food, consumption 
was rare. With the advent of warm houses, coal furnaces, 
heated apartments, luxurious tables, and a tainted atmosphere, 
made so by imperfect ventilation, increase of population, domes- 
.ticated animals, and manufactories of every imaginable de¬ 
scription, the death rate has increased to an appalling degree. 

Proofs are not wanting to show, also, that modes of dress¬ 
ing, imperfectly adapted to the varying temperature of the 
climate, is another prolific and very certain source of lung 
difficulties in females, which terminate in the ulceration and 


196 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


destruction of those organs. Indian habits at the West furnish 
abundant materials for determining many propositions respect¬ 
ing the development of thoracic diseases. 

Those who are surrounded by domestic comforts, protected 
from atmospheric humidities, or chilling blasts; who sleep in 
properly ventilated apartments, and are warmly clad at seasons 
when the weather demands special attention that perspiration 
shall neither be excessive, nor suddenly checked by exposure, are 
also subject to the same class of pectoral inflammations as 
those who repose on the ground in the smoke of a wig¬ 
wam. 

The diet of the Indian is mostly -animal, and simple enough 
as far as it goes to meet the approval of an exacting stickler 
for plain food; and yet they die frequently of pulmonary 
consumption. 

Dr. Hush assured his readers it was unknown to the aborigi¬ 
nes of this country. He was eminent in his day; but more 
extended intercourse with tribes all through the interior of the 
continent since that distinguished author passed away, demon¬ 
strates the existence, and the melancholy ravages, too, of that 
plague among savages, quite as severe- in proportion to their 
numbers, as where the resources of civilization are un¬ 
limited. 

Pkevalence Among Savages. 

Red Jacket, the famous chief, whose name is interwoven 
in the web of modern American history as a wild man of extra-' 
ordinary intelligence and political sagacity, assured a Buffalo 
physician about the year 1823, that no less than seventeen fatal 
cases of consumption had occurred in his own family, including 
ten of his children. 

Other memoranda of a siihilar import might be given, con- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


197 

clusivelj establishing the fact that the disease has always been 
regarded by the Indians as incurable. 

The reason why it is incurable, in. its advanced stages, is 
because there has been a destruction of portions of organs, 
without which life cannot be sustained. 

Aboriginal habits, customs, privations, and their brave 
darings in the chase, in war, and their ardor in feats of strength, 
must expose them to severe colds when heated or in a glow 
of perspiration. Lying down on the damp ground to sleep; 
wading through jungles, and shaded from the life-giving prop¬ 
erties of sunlight by wide-spreading branches of trees in those 
forests where they prefer to roam, must lower their vital tem¬ 
perature and predispose them to the development of many 
painful and fatal maladies. 

Sporadic pulmonary consumption, therefore, on reflection, 
seems to be most frequent with the Indians; while hereditary 
forms of it predominate in civilized society. 


Ventilation. 

Apartments may be satisfactorily ventilated by the latest 
patented contrivance, without essentially modifying the condi¬ 
tion of the air in them, if it is laden with the products of low 
lands, noxious gases, or the putrid decomposition of animal 
remains. There is room for improvement in the management 
of wool and cotton mills, dye-houses and gas works, so that 
they shall not interfere with the health of operatives. 

Where large numbers of females are employed, further 
efforts should be made for giving them pure air for respiration. 

In manufacturing establishments, especially in those where 
several hundred women are congregated, the messengers of 
death soon approach them in all imaginary forms, if ventilation 


198 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


is neglected. Females thus associated suffer more than men 
placed under similar circumstances. 

Private residences, school-rooms, basement apartments, and 
stables are too much neglected in respect to fresh air. Where 
windows are not frequently opened and fresh currents allowed 
to displace those accumulations of dust, invisible spores of 
minute vegetations accumulate in an undisturbed atmosphere. 
Eggs of insects and impurities of various kinds destructive to 
health, generate also numerous diseases. In such conditions of 
air we oftentimes breathe, without being conscious of the exist¬ 
ence of such subtle agencies. A lodgment of these microscopic 
irritants in the lungs are met by nature’s only means of de¬ 
fence,—an extra secretion and pouring out of a fluid from a 
mncons surface to wash away offensive irritants. 

Tobacco an Offence to the Salivaey Glands. 

On that principle tobacco is an unwelcome injurious ex¬ 
citant, and the salivary glands pour out an immense amount of 
saliva to float off the obnoxious quid. When the effort is flrst 
commenced to chew or smoke, the quantity of saliva is more 
copious than after the individual has schooled his salivary 
apparatus to bear the presence of a terrible narcotic with some 
degree of acquiescence; but the glands never, at the end of fifty 
years, cease to manifest a dislike to tobacco in any form, by an 
increased activity of all the buccal and sublingual secretory 
organs at the instant it is introduced into the mouth. 

Both smokers and chewers are constantly expectorating and 
spitting, to the disgust of those in their company, and certainly 
to the manifest injury of themselves. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


199 


A Common Origin of Pulmonary Irritation. 

In. consequence of the lodgment of tiny particles of matter 
in the lungs, they produce a very slight irritation at first. A 
cough, however, is generally sure to follow, and that is simply 
a mechanical effort to throw off the irritant. 

If the adhering atoms cannot be removed by a spasmodic 
blast of air from the lungs, then the next effort to overcome its 
offensive presence is by pouring out a large amount of adhesive 
mucus to entangle them, as it were, affording a better chance 
of expelling the intruders by acting on a larger mass. Thus 
there is a hacking expectoration. 

Thus a settled cough may be produced. By constant repe¬ 
titions, convulsive throes actually lacerate the air-cells, and 
ultimately involve the whole respiratory organs in disease. 

When lesions become extensive, and one air-cell is ruptured, 
so that two, or three, or dozens become one cavity, the thick 
mucus collects in such quantity, besides being exceedingly tena¬ 
cious, that a cough cannot raise it. The collection finally dis¬ 
tends those delicate receptacles, more and more deranging con¬ 
tiguous cells,—and that is the formation of a pulmonary abscess. 

By its weight and purulent character, respiration becomes 
not only painful, but hardly surface enough remains in the 
contiguous respiratory cells to oxygenate the blood sent to 
them to be vitalized. 

This is the last and hopeless state of pulmonary consump¬ 
tion.* 


* It is a well-recognized fact that the colder the climate, the higher the 
latitude, and the drier the atmosphere, the less liable the inhabitants are to 
suffer from consumption. In Iceland, from 1727 to 1837, there was not a single 
case, and Sir R. Parry, in his history of his northern explorations, noticed the 
rarity of throat and lung affections among the inhabitants of Greenland and 
Labrador. 



200 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


It is not tlie object of tliis publication to provide a guide for 
the practice of medicine, nor attempt to persuade those who 
may honor it with a reading, that they can prescribe for them¬ 
selves when sick. 


In the two British stations of the Mediterranean, Gibraltar and Malta, 
long known as favorite resorts for the consumptive, we find the disease to be 
actually more prevalent than in Canada, with its long cold winter. 

In Canada, six men per thousand of the British army are attacked by, and 
half that number die of consumption. 

In Malta there are nine per thousand attacked, and four per thousand die 
of the disease. In Gibraltar the number attacked is seven, and the number 
of deaths three per thousand men. 

In the Bermudas, where the climate is uniform, eight men per thousand 
become consumptive, and five of that number die. But in Newfoundland, 
the mortality from this disease is but four in ten hundred. 

In tropical countries, the progress of consumption is more rapid than 
where the climate is temperate. Deaths from this ailment are more numer¬ 
ous in Brazil than in Kussia. Owing to the extent of territory, and the 
different latitudes and climates embraced in the United States, there is, as 
might be supposed, a corresponding variation in the prevalence of consump¬ 
tion. We find the mortality from this malady to be greater in the New 
England States than in any other part of the Union. 

The death rate by consumption in the States and Territories of the Union 
is shown in the following table: 


Alabama. 


25 

Mississippi. 

....1 

death in 

18 

Arkansas. 


22 

Missouri. 

...1 

death in 

26 

California. 


New Hampshire... 

...1 

death in 

4 

Columbia District.. 

.. 1 death in 

6 

New Jersey. 

...1 

death in 

7 

Connecticut., 


5 

New Mexico. 

...1 

death in 

72 

Delaware. 


10 

New York. 

....1 

death in 

6 

Florida... 


21 

North Carolina... 

....1 

death in 

18 

Georgia. 


35 

Ohio. 

...1 

death in 

11 

Illinois. 


13 

Oregon. 


death in 

9 

Indiana. 


11 

Pennsvlvania. 

...1 

death in 

8 

Iowa. 


11 

Rhode Island. 

. ..1 

death in 

4 

Kentucky. 


11 

South Carolina.... 

....1 

death in 

30 

Louisiana. 


13 

Tennessee..... 

....1 

death in 

13 

Maine.. 


6 

Texas. 

....1 

death in 

27 

Maryland. 


8 

Utah. 


death in 

20 

Massachusetts. 


5 

Virginia. 

...1 

death in 

11 

Michigan.. 


6 

Vermont. 

...1 

death in 

4 

Minnesota.. 


29 

Wisconsin. 

....1 

death in 

10 


The small proportion of mortality from consumption in California was 







































THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


201 


Not Safe to Doctor One’s Self. 

It is a maxim with lawyers, that he who pleads his own 
case has a fool for a client. Those who expect to he their own 
physicians, on the self-complacent notion that they understand 
their own constitution better than those who have been labo¬ 
riously studying the morbid conditions to which humanity is 
incident, make a mistake which cannot be readily rectified. 

To show how incipient forms of disease may be avoided, as 
well as caused, with plain suggestions respecting the mainten¬ 
ance of health, is of more importance to non-professional 
readers than a volume of recipes. 

Medical Impositions. 

Beware of medical impostors. This country is an active 
theatre for the display of their peculiar talents. It is a profit¬ 
able specialty to trade in advertised falsely-called remedies for 
consumption. 

By baiting the trap, as a hunter would say, which is nothing 
less than encouraging a forlorn hope, those who have sought 
relief without finding it, purchase liberally and pay dearly for 
stuff that cannot accomplish cures when the substance of the 
lungs, or portions of them, are actually destroyed. 


accounted for by the fact that the greater part of the population was com¬ 
posed of miners and emigrants from other parts, who were over 25 years of 
age, and not so liable to its attacks. More recent statistics have confirmed 
the assertion, that consumption is much more prevalent on the Atlantic coast 
than in California. 

Daily variation in the temperature is believed to be the great cause of the 
excess of mortality in the Eastern States. 

In proportion to the population, the number afflicted by this ** destroyer 
of mankind,” is frequently greater in small cities than in large ones. 

13 ^ 



202 


THE Wats of women. 


Treat witli contempt advertised certificates constructed for 
encouraging hopes that never can be realized. Shun consump¬ 
tion doctors as you would seventh sons, clairvoyant seventh 
daughters, pickpockets, and professed swindlers. 

Indian doctors! those hypocrites and ignoramuses who an¬ 
nounce themselves as having been taught by savages to do 
what men of science cannot do, is an absurdity. Ho person of 
common intelligence believes one person can see further into 
a millstone than another. 

If those who have studied the minute anatomy of the body, 
and have watched the operation of drugs in every possible 
phase in great hospitals, under the critical instruction of dis¬ 
tinguished clinical professors, cannot arrest the destructive 
march of pulmonary consumption, is there any good reason for 
supposing that ignorant, vulgar pretenders, half of whom can 
neither read, speak, nor write their mother-tongue grammati¬ 
cally, possess knowledge superior to such as are educated under 
all the advantages of the age ? 

There are consumption curers entirely ignorant of the 
mechanical structure of the lungs, as they are of other viscera 
in the cavities of the body, who seem to magnetize those falling 
within the sphere of their operations, so that some very sensible 
people become their victims. 

Consumption is an exhaustless theme. Weak lungs or 
strong lungs are subjects for discussion when no such expres¬ 
sions are scientifically allowable. Susceptibility to certain 
infiuences as sources of irritation to those delicate organs, is 
what is to be understood, and not that in the sense of a strong 
muscle, or a strong rope, or a strong beam, are they to be re¬ 
presented. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


203 


CONTEACTED ChESTS. 

Women, far more commonly than men, have contracted 
chests, which mechanically prevent a full inflation of the 
lungs to the extent they would he fllled in a chest of larger 
capacity. 

When air is simply inhaled, there is taken from it oxygen, 
—an element that sustains life. That being accomplished, the 
waiting air, thus deprived of one of its constituents, is forced 
out through the same tubular passage by which it was drawn 
in, carrying with it carbonic acid gas. 

Such is the process and the object of breathing. By respira¬ 
tion, blood meets air in the lungs, where the exchange is made 
of something that cannot be safely retained, for that which 
maintains life. 

Carbonic acid gas is taken up largely by growing vegeta¬ 
tion, which they exchange for oxygen, that supports animal 
life. 

With the cessation of respiration, the pulsations of the 
heart gradually terminate, and then unconsciousness follows. 
In drowning, those phenomena succeed each other in rapid 
succession. 


Eesuscitation. 

Left thus, an individual is popularly considered dead. 
But if quickly taken from the water, when all the functions of 
life are apparently forever ended—the heai-t no longer beating, 
the lungs collapsed, and consciousness gone—vitality may be 
recalled by persistent efforts. 

Artiflcial inflation, the application of warmth, and . the 
pursuance of directions extensively disseminated by humane 
societies, for the express ' purpose of informing people how to 


204 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


proceed for the recovery of drowned persons, often recall the 
apparently-dead to life again. 

Such restorations are splendid triumphs of science. Alter¬ 
nately tilling and pressing out the air from' the lungs, by work¬ 
ing the intercostal muscles, enlarges first the pleural cavity, 
then it is as suddenly diminished by the expulsion of the air, 
imitating natural respiration. 

The air-cells are thus expanded to their full capacity. By 
continuing the process perseveringly awhile, the blood begins 
to absorb oxygen. As soon as that takes place, the heart feels 
the stimulus and contracts. 

Through the agency of muscles thus manipulated, a reflex 
power is transmitted to both heart and lungs, and they then 
continue to act without assistance. The soul is recalled. 

Where was the soul during suspended animation ? Whence 
came it, by carrying on this mechanical efiTort, to bring the dead 
to life again ? 

Value of Gymnastic Exeecises. 

Reasonable gymnastic exercises are exceedingly serviceable. 
The inner capacity of the chest may be very considerably en¬ 
larged by systematic exercise of the exterior pectoral muscles. 
The further an individual advances in age, the more difficult it 
is to overcome rigidity, or spread bones held closely by inelastic 
ligaments. 

By commencing seasonably, before that condition is estab¬ 
lished, the conformation of the thorax or chest, which may be 
too narrow and too flat for a full development of the lungs, 
may be very considerably expanded. Robustness and vigor 
may be attained, of the highest importance in regard to health 
and longevity, by simply compelling motor cords and strap-like 
tissues to pull back, out of the way of the swelling lungs, those 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


205 


too mucli incurvated ribs that prevent a full inhalation of air 
for tilling the air-cells. 

Ladders, inclined planes, swinging at arm’s length in slings, 
climbing suspended ropes, pitching quoits, driving a ball, or 
following out the directions of acknowledged experts and 
public benefactors, who teach hygienic laws, to the saving of 
thousands of valuable lives that otherwise would long since 
have been entombed, had it not been for their valuable lessons, 
—is far more agreeable than emetics, blisters, tonic tinctures, or 
other products of a drug-store. 

"When lesions exist, there may be hemorrhages, or a ten¬ 
dency to expectoration of blood from a continued inflammation 
of the lining membrane of the bronchial tubes, indicating a 
condition that forbids gymnastic exercises. It is then best for 
a person thus circumstanced, with graver symptoms to be appre¬ 
hended, to change location. 

Changing Location. 

Avoid medicines, then, which are not decidely tonic, it being 
impossible to bear up under the action of drugs which have a 
sedative influence, or those which, like active cathartics, sud¬ 
denly reduce the vital force. 

In making a removal, it is essential to seek a residence 
where the atmosphere is dry. Humidity is the bane of con¬ 
sumptives. 

Sleeping over stables, with an expectation that evaporating 
filth, from fermenting manure will heal ulcerated lungs, or 
strengthen feeble tissues in air-cells, is quite as unphilosophical 
as a residence in the Mammoth Cave for the same purpose. 

St. Paul, Minnesota, has a reputation for being a hopeful 
temporary abode for consumptives, provided the patient is 


206 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


prompt in going tliere before tlie disease has made that destruc¬ 
tive progress which a change of climate cannot arrest. 

It has been questioned by some medical men whether St. 
Paul really does work the change which has been claimed for it, 
as a resource for consumptives. Possibly the journey from any 
considerable distance contributes more directly to their benefit 
than may have occurred to those who warmly recommend a 
dry, elevated position. 

Florida, also, has its advocates for the same class of invalids. 
Many have been exceedingly benefited by a residence of a few 
months there. Avoiding the harsh, cold, damp winds and 
easterly weather, of ISTew England particularly, when the in¬ 
clement winter of the Atlantic shores sets in, by escaping to 
the mild regions of the South, must certainly afford relief to 
diseased lungs, and give the general system some chance for 
recuperation from that extreme debility which follows in the 
train of a protracted cough. 

Two miles from the mouth of that celebrated cave just re¬ 
ferred to, remains of huts may still be seen, roofiess of course, 
where numbers of emaciated strangers in all stages of consump¬ 
tion resided in thick darkness, if their lamps happened to 
go out. 

Constant coughing and the repeating* echoes of those sepul¬ 
chral sounds that were forerunners of approaching dissolution, 
together with smoke, which were as unendurable as their in¬ 
dividual pains, soon destroyed the romance or hallucination, 
whichever it may have been, and those who survived those 
isolated trials in search of health in the gloomy bowels of the 
earth, were glad to return to their inviting homes. 

The theory which influenced consumptives to wend their 
way to the great Kentucky cave, was that the saltpetred at¬ 
mosphere in the interior was a remedy for ulcerated lungs. 



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THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


207 


Pulmonary consumption is everywhere. It is quite as well 
to remain at home, imder certain forms of the malady, as to 
seek relief in other latitudes. 

The little that may be temporarily gained by long and ex¬ 
pensive journeys to some imagined place of restoration, is not 
a compensation for deprivations of society, and those friends 
and associations, devoted relatives and sympathizing acquaint¬ 
ances, medical attendants and familiar scenery, which are en¬ 
hanced in value the farther we are removed from them. 

What to Do and What to Avoid. 

Horseback exercise; all forms of gymnastic feats which 
give a wide range of play to the pectoral muscles, together 
with a generous diet, are always first to be tried in incipient 
forms of this particular disease. 

Avoiding a free out-door exposure when the weather is clear 
and dry, is a mistake. Humidity, heavy dews, rain and cold, 
give activity to those processes of derangement in the lungs 
which hasten a fatal termination of life. Therefore it is im¬ 
portant to sleep warmly protected, while there is a free circu¬ 
lation, or, at least, a free admission of air into the apartment, 
without fear of inhaling dangerous elements from that source. 

Eating whatever relishes is not to be overlooked in a desire to 
take advantage of all available circumstances for promoting the 
comfort of a consumptive. There should be no restrictions in 
regard to food. The appetite is exceedingly capricious, there¬ 
fore whatever is coveted may be taken with impunity. If oily 
food, butter, cream, fat meats, etc., agree with the individual, 
the more freely they are taken the better. 

Systematically, that is, at regular periods, at suitable inter¬ 
vals, take cod-liver oil. Its value has not been overrated. For 


208 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


a time there was danger of its utility being undervalued in 
consequence of the general repugnance of patients to taking it 
on account of the disagreeable fishy smell, and the nausea in¬ 
duced by it in some irritable stomachs. 

Happily for the reputation of modern pharmacy, cod-liver 
oil is now so admirably prepared, its objectionable taste is 
overcome, so that it may be taken without hesitancy,—all its 
unpleasant taste and odor being taken away without impairing 
its medicinal properties. 

Cod-liver oil is not considered medicine, in the common ac¬ 
ceptation of that term, but nutritious animal food that furnishes 
materials for repairing <a wasted form. 

Abstain from whiskey and similar heating stimulants. 
Physicians who have urged such treatment have done the 
country an irreparable wi’ong. 

Unintentionally, they have made drunkards, by develop¬ 
ing a morbid inclination for ardent spirits, which cannot 
always be overcome, when the discovery is made that the 
remedy is worse than tlie disease for which it was pre¬ 
scribed. 

One of the simplest precautions for preventing inflamma¬ 
tory attacks of the lungs, is to be shod and clothed suitably. 
Ladies, particularly, invite death’s doings, by being in extremely 
thin shoes, and light dresses that conduct off the caloric of the 
body, which should be retained by non-conducting clothing, 
when they find themselves threatened with a cough. 

Thinly dressed, with the chest haK exposed to direct blasts 
of cold air; standing at open windows in a current, or sitting 
out-door in a damp atmosphere, leaving a warm room for a 
cold one; dancing till heated by exercise, and then stepping 
into a carriage in a glow of perspiration, haK protected by a 
silk cloak, a thousand dollar gossamer shawl, instead of a wool- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


209 


len blanket, are so many ways of inviting conditions of health 
which no medical skill is competent to manage. 

The mucous passages, especially those leading to the lungs, 
are the first to suffer under such courses of imprudence. The 
lungs become engorged with blood when the lining membrane 
is fiushed with a commencing infiammation, which rarely fails 
to be accompanied by a hectic cough. 


Violation of General Laws of Health. 

Happily, women ar'e beginning to discover the dangers that 
surround them, in conforming to the wild caprices of fashions. 
Those who escape pulmonary consumption by their violation 
of sanitary laws, are frequent sufferers from pleurisy, usually 
originating in the same kind of imprudence which generates 
other formidable evils. 


Pleurisy. 

Instead of being confined to the lining membrane of the 
cells within the lobes of the lungs, pleurisy means an inflamma¬ 
tion of the pleura, or living membrane of the chest in which 
the lungs play. 

Whenever the inflammation becomes acutely painful in 
pleurisy, the attempted full inflation of the lungs must neces¬ 
sarily press against the inflamed surface. A stitch in the side, 
a common expression, simply means that the outside covering 
of the lungs has become attached or glued, as it were, to the 
membrane next the ribs—and the stitch is but tearing them 
apart—or rather, bridles of adhesive serous fluid, put upon the 
stretch, cause that acute sensation, a pain always attended 
with danger. f ^ 


210 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Instead of patronizing slioes, the soles of wliicli are scarcely 
thicker than paper, it is quite as proper for females to wear 
them of sufficient thickness, as for men. 

When the feet are cold and kept so for hours, in conse¬ 
quence of the waste of warmth through thin soles, the circu¬ 
lation of blood in minute vessels at such a distance from the 
heart, is partially interrupted. That cannot be habitually 
practised without deranging the general circulation. Swelled 
feet are the result of cold and compression. 

The torture of tight shoes does not wholly consist in the 
development of corns and bunions, but in the production of 
conditions in the mechanism of the circulation that may de¬ 
generate into actual organic lesions. 

Ladies should have their feet and ankles as completely pro¬ 
tected as men who would soon be incapacitated for active pur¬ 
suits were they put into the frail shoes and gossamer stockings, 
which are the pride of a well-dressed woman. 

Suspended, not Cubed. 

Hereditary consumption cannot, with certainty, be averted. 
It may be suspended, as it were—or rather kept at bay by 
changing residence to a propitious climate. But all such 
measures are regarded as temporary. Nothing is more difficult 
than to stop the progress of a disease which destroys the organ 
by which life is positively sustained. 

Sporadic, or that form of pulmonary consumption, in¬ 
duced by carelessness or unfortunate exposure to influences 
that could not, or would not, be avoided at the time, is to be 
managed differently. 

By an imprudent exposure to cold and humidity, an impetus 
is given to the development of quiescent tubercles. They are 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


211 


suddenly inflamed, and suppurate. In hereditary consumption, 
tubercles are actually found imbedded in the lung tissues of 
new-born infants. They may remain many years perfectly 
indolent, if those precautions are taken which are pointed out 
in the foregoing observations, that have a tendency to awaken 
them from a long slumber into activity. 

We do not believe hereditary consumption can be arrested 
permanently, so that it may not be transmitted to the children 
of such unfortunates. But it is quite certain life may be con¬ 
siderably prolonged by a judicious reference to latitude and 
longitude, before grave symptoms indicate an ulceration of the 
air-cells. 


CHAPTER XVIL 
Digestion. 

Digestion and tlie Functions of the Liver—Opinions of the Profession— 

Disagree—Indications—Ancient Doses—Modern Indication—Illustrations 

—Intricate Mechanism—Demand for Sugar—Diseased Livers. 

It maj be surprising intelligence to those who importune 
physicians as to what they should eat and drink, or what they 
might take into their stomachs with impunity, to assure them 
that medical practitioners are no better judges on that subject 
than themselves. 

Because medical men are supposed to be laboriously inter¬ 
rogating Nature for information that may be of service to those 
who employ them, they are held accountable to a certain extent 
by a confiding public, in regard to the health of those who 
seek their advice. 

Unfortunately, medical Solomons disagree among them¬ 
selves. There is no standard by which to regulate the sanitary 
condition of society. They entertain theories enough to perplex 
all the universities oh the globe; but the facts which always 
have precedence over speculations, are comparatively few, and 
not much relished by those who are ambitious for establishing 
theories as substitutes. 

Digestion is a familiar topic, especially with persons pro¬ 
foundly ignorant of their own organization, and indigestion is 
still less understood by many who assume to be extremely wise. 
There is no definite system to be pursued, that will insure im¬ 
munity from indigestion, by recourse to drugs. 

Were we to say let medicine alone entirely, it might be 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


213 


thought a selfish purpose was in view. Unhappily for those 
seeking reliable information respecting the course to be pursued 
to insure the highest standard of health, medical philosophers 
strangely disagree, so that invalids are perplexed, and, on the 
whole, derive about as much benefit from one source as another. • 

ISTo one set of stereotyped directions meets every case of in¬ 
digestion. There are no specifics for dyspepsia. Treatment 
that has been efficacious for one person, is of no service to 
another. 

It is curious to examine the rules laid down by different 
doctors in reference to the kind of food that should be taken, 
under certain conditions, and that should be avoided, on the 
scor^ of being non-digestible. 

Many of the wise decisions on that point are from non- 
scientific sources. But they exercise an arbitrary influence ovef 
the minds of those who conceive it necessary to select a diet 
with express reference to its speedy, or rather easy, assimilation. 
And yet, gross mistakes are made, not through the false indica¬ 
tions of science, but through ignorance of the first principles of 
chemical science. 

For example, one recommends soft-boiled eggs; another, 
hard-boiled. Without being conscious of it, our likes or dis¬ 
likes exert an arbitrary control over the judgment, and we think 
we are guided by scientific principles, when, in fact, we are 
managed by no principle at all in matters that purely concern 
the stomach. 

Physicians differ exceedingly on the .worn-out subject of 
diet. The various schools of medicine have their hobbies, while 
the representatives of each have their eccentric advocates. 

Allopathies charge their patients as artillery officers load 
cannon, with all the gun will bear without bursting; therefore, 
ten grains of calomel, fortified with ten more of jalap, the prac- 


214 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


tice of twenty years ago repeated, was tlie sheet-anchor of the 
old-fashioned practitioners. 

Reforming homoeopathies go to the other extreme. Struck 
with compassionate horror at the magnitude of incompatible 
compounds, they prescribe attenuated dilutions of something 
that can be neither smelt, tasted, nor felt. The one hundred 
and forty-ninth part of a grain, in forty gallons of water, is fear¬ 
fully potent, administered by skilful hands. 

Men of honor have never agreed in politics. It would be 
miraculous if there were no diversity of opinions in medicine. 
Each party is honestly impressed with the value of the dogmas 
they profess. Thus, inquiry is kept alive; otherwise there 
would be a stagnation of intellect, and another dark age. Hew 
and important truths are developed, in consequence of a differ¬ 
ence of opinion among men equally honest and equally desirous 
of arriving at definite conclusions. 


Evanescence of Theories. 

Theories have been repeatedly advanced from opposite direc¬ 
tions touching the mooted question of what kind of food is best 
for human beings. 

Civilization cannot settle the question. Savages give them¬ 
selves no concern about it, devouring whatever is attainable that 
assuages the demands of hunger. 

notwithstanding the inculcations of physiological scholars, 
that certain modes of living tend to longevity, while others 
interfere with vital laws, and abridge the natural duration of 
life,—both savages and barbarians live as many years on the 
average, even less molested by the invasion of disease, than 
the most favored of mortals who fare sumptuously every day 
on viands that meet the approval of the soundest medical 
scrutineers. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


215 


We require a proper mixture of animal and vegetable food, 
it being of little consequence whether the first is roast beef, 
canvas-back ducks, sea slugs, roasted rattlesnake, boiled crabs, 
shark’s fins, dried grasshoppers, fish, fowls, or turtle’s eggs. 

Some of all these usually considered disgusting, but largely 
consumed articles, actually nourish the body as completely as 
artistic dishes prepared according to the highest gastronomic 
authority, every one of them containing nutritious materials. 

Science and civilization refine, but the empty stomach 
obeys an imperious law ,—eat or he eaten ,—making no apologies 
for dining on whatever satisfies the urgent demands of 
liunger. 

The benefits derived from animal or vegetable food are to 
be measured by the results in respect to growth and repro¬ 
duction. 

Mechanism of the Stomach. 

A stomach is a receiving sac, into which food is taken, from 
which, by a series of extraordinary vital processes, materials are 
elaborated that enter into the composition of solids and fluids 
of which every living body is composed. 

Every animal, small or large, except in the most rudimentary 
forms of life in particular families of infusoria, possesses a 
stomach, modified in structure to meet the peculiar conditions 
of each species. Some have two, some three, and the peaceable, 
patient ox has four, the food passing from one to the other 
before reaching the intestinal canal, where nutriment is sepa¬ 
rated from the useless matter with which it was imited before 
digestion commenced. 

All food requires a preliminary preparation before being 
swallowed. Thus, chewing, grinding, and lubricating it by. 
being mixed with saliva,—a product of glands in the mouth and 


216 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


throat,—facilitates its descent down the oesophagus, and fits it 
for being more readily acted upon by the gastric juice. 

The presence of food in the stomach stimulates its inner 
lining membrane to pour out a thin, bland fiuid, which is a 
powerful solvent. 

By alternate contractions and elongations of the fibres of 
that marvellously constructed organ, the mass is rolled to and 
fro, so that, being thoroughly mixed with the gastric juice, ibis 
changed in aj)pearance and consistence, preparatory to further 
vital processes. 

Digestion is due largely to a succession of muscular move¬ 
ments commenced at the base of the tongue. One set of fibres 
takes up the action where those above leave the morsel, and 
tlius it is propelled from point to point, till it falls, by its 
gravity, into the receiving-pouch, for such is the stomach 
in one of its functions, being quiescent till the cardiac orifice 
closes. 

Teeth deserve a more extended consideration in this con¬ 
nection, than can be bestowed upon them at this stage of 
investigation of the laws of digestion. 

As soon as they have ground down masses, and rendered 
them pulpy, soft, and easy for deglutition, they pass through 
uplifted arches at the top of the throat, not unlike a portcullis 
in their office. Fairly through, the gate closes, and next they 
are passed between two spongy bodies, the tonsils, the use of 
which is to oil them, as it were, to prevent friction or hindrance 
on the passage down the tube which leads to the stomach. 

Finally,'the circular and longitudinal muscular threads of 
which the oesophagus is constructed, contracting behind, urges 
morsels, assisted by gravity, till they fall into the membranous 
receptacle, where active chemical action is commenced. 


THE WATS .OF WOMEN. 


217 


Progress of Digestion. 

In a few hours, the food thus treated mechanically at first 
passes from the stomach through a narrow orifice, controlled by 
a sphincter muscle, which relaxes or spasmodically closes the 
orifice according to the sensation it receives from the approach¬ 
ing mass waiting to pass through the pylorus, into the upper 
portion of the duodenum, the first section of the intestinal tube, 
spoken of by old writers as a second stomach in man. 

When a bit of bone, for example, has been accidentally 
swallowed,—a nail, a metallic button, a piece of money, or, 
indeed, anything that might produce irritation, or do violence 
in the intestines, it is not allowed to proceed, but is arrested as 
a prisoner in the stomach, where it is acted upon by the gastric 
juice till reduced to dimensions suitable for traversing the 
whole distance, nearly thirty feet, without injury to the delicate 
walls of the canal, then it is permitted to proceed. 

The circular controlling muscle watching over the safety of 
parts beyond, is a vigilant sentinel that rarely ever fails of 
doing faithful duty. 

Indigestible articles, or rather those which for a very long 
while resist the decomposing action of the gastric juice, move 
up to the pylorus in the mass waiting for exit through the 
gateway, but the never-sleeping watchdog—the sphincter 
muscle—detects the effort, and invariably drives it back. 

Unless ejected by vomitation, an unwelcome traveller, 
urgent to go on the journey that he has commenced, may be 
thus retained for one or two years, and then be found in the 
stomach, if composed of elements on which the gastric solvent 
acts very slowly, or not at all. 


14 * 


218 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Swallowing Articles Accidentally. 

Pennies, thimbles, ivory and small glass balls, marbles and 
similar articles, the playthings of children, are often swallowed 
by them. When smaller than the ordinary diameter of the 
pylorus, such bodies are permitted to pass through unmolested, 
and they are soon voided without producing any disturbance 
or injury. 

If, on the contrary, they are too large, they are detained till 
they have been so much reduced in size by the gastric secretion, 
as to pass with impunity. 

Balls of hair are frequently found in the maws of cattle, 
when slaughtered, which must have been detained there a very 
considerable time, and which never could have been removed 
on account of their size, nor melted down to smaller dimensions, 
because their coihposition resisted the otherwise powerful 
chemical energy of the gastric juice. 

They are of various dimensions, in cabinets from half an 
inch to four or five in diameter, and usually perfectly globular, 
as though they had been constantly rolling about to acquire 
that symmetrical form. 

In the season of shedding their hair, cattle are in the habit 
of currying each other with their tongues. The surface of that 
flexible organ is covered with projecting eminences, called 
papillge, which point towards the gullet. In raking ofi loose 
hair, it accumulates on them as it does on a currycomb. Hot 
being able to dislodge such accumulations, and eject them from 
the mouth, they are swallowed. While detained in the first 
stomach, additions are made to the mass from time to time, 
which are matted on and felted there by mucous fluids, and, 
finally, the ball becomes not only large, but exceedingly com¬ 
pact, and hard as wood. 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


219 


When a cud is raised to the mouth, those imprisoned halls, 
unquestionably, are also carried to the cardiac orifice, through 
which the cud ascends, but they are refused a passage. The 
same refusal is met at the other outlet towards the intestine. 
This, then, explains the origin and detention of such bodies in 
the stomach of ruminants. 


Chemical Potency of G-astkic Juice. 

One of the most remarkable cases on medical record, demon¬ 
strating the irresistible solvent properties of the gastric juice— 
quite as intense in man, and nearly as concentrated as in sharks 
and serpents—occurred in Boston over fifty years ago, in the per¬ 
son of a sailor by the name of Cumings, who actually swallowed 
several pocket-knives. About one year after the event, two of 
the knives had entirely disappeared. The t£ird was more than 
half gone when the patient died of gastritis. 

Had the exact character of the case been understood, the 
surgeons and medical gentlemen in attendance at the hospital 
where Cumings had been admitted, not believing his constant 
assertion that he had penknives in his stomach, a course of tonic 
treatment might have been pursued that would have sustained 
him till Hature had completed the grand process of dissolving 
them, and thus relieving the poor sufferer, who was considered 
a lunatic. 

When food arrives at the intestine from the stomach, it 
meets there with several peculiar secretions from small glands 
imbedded in its coats, each of which performs a specific chemical 
action on what is passing over the tract of their location. 


220 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Bile or Gall. 

About twelve inches from the stomach, gall is poured into 
the moving mass, and various fluids from ducts opening into the 
interior of the intestine. A little lower, pancreatic fluid is in¬ 
troduced into the common avenue, which converts butter, fat, 
oils, etc., in an incredibly short time into an emulsion, which 
prepares them for digestion. Otherwise, without that particular 
fluid, those aliments would pass the whole length of the 
abdominal tube, and be ejected without having been essentially 
altered, or imparting any nutrition to the body. 

Lacteals. 

Still lower in that same membranous tube, minute ori¬ 
fices are discoverable in its walls, opening into it. Those are 
extremely numerous, and extend through the entire length, but 
are more aggregated into clusters in some places than others. 
Those are the mouths of lacteal vessels. There are millions of 
them scarcely larger than fine needles. The outer extremity 
running back, ultimately terminates in fleshy bodies, known as 
mesenteric glands. It is the ofiice of those lacteal mouths to 
suck up, from the mass passing by, chyle,—a sort of milky-look- 
ing fluid, the product of digestion, which is carried directly into 
the mesenteric glands. 

After remaining a little while there, probably mixing with 
a secretion peculiar to themselves, the fluid passes out through 
minute tubes on the opposite side, which finally empty their 
contents into a mealy-white tube lying on the side of the spine. 
* The mesenteric glands are way-stations, where the milky 
fluid, or chyle, undergoes chemical modifications before taking 
a departure for the thoracic duct, a reservoir into which the 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


221 


rich product of digested food, that which alone is nourishment, 
is conveyed. 

Lying partly in front, but inclining to the left side, is a 
white ascending tube, under the name of thoracic duct, which 
finally makes a graceful curve, and enters into the great jugu¬ 
lar vein at the root of the neck, at an angle formed by the junc¬ 
tion of the subclavian vein from the arm with the jugular. 

Where the Chyle goes. 

A small, gentle fiow of that milky fluid is constantly mixing 
with venous blood from the left arm and the brain, at the point 
described. From thence the new white fluid unites with blood 
that is on its way to the heart to be revivified, and loses its 
original color or whiteness. 

Thus tracing the chyle from its origin, we ascertain the 
manner in which nature provides materials for sustaining and 
keeping in repair a living body. 

Oxygenation. 

Although material for making blood is thus explained 
mechanically, one further process must be completed to vitalize 
the mixture and fit it for the purposes of life. 

Being carried to the right side of the heart, the auricle into 
which it is received contracts and forces it down through an 
orifice into the ventricle, a strong chamber. 

That next contracts, it being a forcing-pump of prodigious 
power, and drives the new blood up through the pulmonary 
artery into the lungs. 

When in the lungs, the blood thus driven in is distributed 
into unnumbered millions of fine tubes which ramify and 
spread round small air-cells. Next, we inhale air, which dis- 


222 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


tends those cells into air-balloons. In the act of swelling with 
the inhaled air, the waiting blood imbibes from it oxygen, and 
then the lungs expel the air, thus deprived of an essential ele¬ 
ment, and, in expiration, throw off carbonic acid gas. 

The blood is now vitalized and ready to fulfil its mission. 
For that purpose, being collected, it is again forced into the 
auricle of the left side of the heart. From thence it is forced 
into the ventricle of that side, and from thence driven into the 
aorta, a tube about three-quarters of an inch in diameter. That 
is ultimately subdivided into smaller and smaller arteries, by 
which the blood is freely distributed over and completely 
through every portion of the body, as already described on 
a preceding page. 

A Double Heart. 

The right and left sides of the heart are quite independent 
of each other in function. There have been cases recorded 
where the two halves were separated at considerable distance 
from each other. Hature invariably pursues a system of eco¬ 
nomy in all her beautiful works, and this union of the heart of 
the lungs with the heart of the body is an illustration of the 
principle. By joining the two, less space was required, while 
muscular power was gained for both. 

Such are some of the complicated processes on which life 
depends. A brittle thread, at best, is vitality, but without just 
so many cords, tubes, and tissues, there would be neither motion 
nor consciousness. 

There is no difference in the anatomical appearance or struc¬ 
ture of the digestive organs of males and females. They are 
precisely alike. The secretion of nutriment and its final diffu¬ 
sion in no respect differ in the two sexes. Their food, there¬ 
fore, should be the same. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


223 


Women, in tlie higher social walks of society, oftener 
deprave their digestion than men, by subsisting on aliments 
too concentrated. This important fact is purposely repeated 
many times in this volume. 

In the relation to which these remarks are applied, their food 
is not bulky enough, and consequently the alimentary canal is 
not as fully distended as it should be. 

Some take food in too small quantities, for fear of obesity, 
and hence the abdominal region is gaunt and contracted, thereby 
compressing the hollow viscera too closely. 

Those who by free exercise in open air have excellent health, 
also have an active digestion and a vigorous appetite. There 
is a better development of their frames; and both strength, 
beauty, • energy of character, and those qualities which distin¬ 
guish those who attain distinction, are due to perfect nutrition 
and freedom of body and mind. 

The foregoing propositions may be considered trifling to 
those who have given no special thought to the ‘philosophy of 
digestion. But the soundest, brightest, and most promising 
children are born of mothers who have a good digestion. 

Feeble, sickly, peevish children, who live to become men and 
women, are always complaining and taking medicine. They 
had mothers from whom they inherited most of their physical, 
to say nothing of their moral and mental disabilities. 

numerous functional derangements, together with grave 
indispositions, are popularly charged to the liver. It is an organ 
uniformly supposed by those totally ignorant of its offices or 
construction, to have a controlling influence under circum¬ 
stances where it probably has none at all. 

Some physicians, especially those the least qualified by their 
anatomical acquirements to give a correct diagnosis, find it a 
convenient retreat for concealing their ignorance, to refer to 


224 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


that organ as the seat of many morbid conditions, which cannot 
be readily refuted if they happen to be wrong, on account of 
its locality. 

The liver is a gland of gigantic size, weighing in a woman 
of medium stature about four pounds. Before birth it is vastly 
larger and wholly disproportioned to other organs in the abdom¬ 
inal cavity, as they appear in adults. 

A reason why it necessarily has such dimensions is in com 
sequence of having nearly all the circulating blood from a 
maternal source sent directly to it. At birth, with the first 
breath of the infant, one half the blood that went to the liver 
before is instantly diverted from it by the closing of a valve in 
the middle of the heart. 

In consequence of being thus suddenly deprived of so much 
vitalizing fluid, the liver hardly maintains its volume. Certain 
it is, it remains stationary in size for a long while. In the 
meantime, other parts which were somewhat rudimentary, as it 
were, or imjTerfectly developed, giK)w into their predestined 
proportions and assume more active labors. 

From blood sent into the liver, gall, that intensely bitter 
fluid, is secreted. One of the specific uses of the liver is to 
elaborate that extraordinary product from venous blood. Arter¬ 
ies convey florid, vitalized blood to the intestines and digestive 
apparatus, where it leaves its vitalizing influence. When that 
is extracted, the remainder flows through another set of vessels, 
veins, which carry it to the lungs, to be recharged with oxygen 
from inlialed atmospheric air. On its way there it is compelled 
to pass through the liver, and from it certain vessels take out 
of it bile, and, as we shall learn in the sequel, some other 
products. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


225 


Intricate Mechanism. 

No mechanism, on tha whole, is more intricate than the 
network of tubes by which bile is separated from the passing 
current of venous blood. When detached or drawn aside by 
itself, a transfer of it to the gall-bladder, where it is stored 
for after occasions, is one of the great curiosities of animal con¬ 
struction. 

Physiologists, with all their ingenuity and indomitable 
perseverance, have not yet definitely settled the question 
of the use of bile in the economy. That it is of importance 
in digestion can hardly be doubted, and yet there are 
more theories extant than facts to show where it goes, or what 
it is for. 

Bilious affections, bilious stomachs, a bilious habit, and such 
like expressions, are flippantly handed about by medical practi¬ 
tioners as they are by persons who learn them as parrots do 
from hearing repetitions of the same phrases, without attaching 
any meaning to the words. It is an evidence of ignorance 
rather than scientific attainment, when guessing passes for pro-. 
found pathological acquirements. 

Too much is charged to the poor liver, and tons of pills 
and useless prescriptions are directed to the correction of 
faults it never had—to the cure of diseases in which it had no 
agency. 

Eegarded by non-professional persons as performing offices 
which it does not perform, their deductions are, of course, 
as crude as those who pretend to more knowledge without 
being a whit wiser. Bile is considered a terrible foe to health 
in common parlance, a disorganizing bugbear, a maker of 
melancholy, a breeder of low spirits, jaundice, and a host of 

other misfortunes that beset mankind. 

15 


226 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 

•* 

Allusion lias already been made to tbe sugar-making ser¬ 
vices of tlie liver, coupled with observations on its complicated 
functions before and after birth. Jit being a comparatively 
recent discovery that man and all the lower families of terres¬ 
trial animals carry within their bodies a sugar-mill, we cannot 
pass over the natural provision for meeting the demands of 
organic life, without dwelling particularly on that remarkable 
function, on different pages of this work. 

Demand for Sugar and Bile. 

Sugar must be provided from some source. If it does not 
exist in sufficient abundance in the food of each day, the 
deficiency is supplied by the liver. 

Attached to its largest lobe, lying underside of the dia¬ 
phragm to which it is attached, is a small bag, about the size 
and form of a small pear, into which bile is stored for future 
use. A slender duct leads from it to the first portion of the 
small intestine some twelve or more inches from the stomach. 
In the process of digestion the bile fiows into the upper end of 
the intestinal tube, and, undoubtedly, there performs an active 
part in chemically preparing the passing food for yielding up 
its nutritious elements; but what becomes of it afterwards has 
not yet been positively ascertained. 

Carnivorous animals secrete more bile than graminivorous; 
and ferocious fishes, as sharks, torpedoes, wolf-fish, etc., require 
far more than social dwellers of the sea. 

Admitted to be indispensable to perfect digestion, how it 
acts, or what becomes of the quantities secreted, since it does 
not pass off with waste materials in the ordinary manner, very 
much exercises the inquiring minds of physiologists. 

That noble servant of man, the horse, feeding exclusively 
on vegetable food, as those animals do which chew the cud, has 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


'227 

no gall bladder. His liver is of ordinary appearance exteriorly. 
If bile is secreted in the horse^s liver, where are the excretory 
ducts that conduct it to the food ? But that an organ of such 
magnitude and weight, occupying so much room, has no ser¬ 
vice to perform after birth, is hardly probable. Haturalists 
have the mortitication to acknowledge the impossibility, at 
present, of explaining its true function in the horse. 

Ignorant as we are, and humiliating as is the confession, 
that many guess at much they do not understand, the .^iseases 
of the liver are of a character to perplex and baffle the most 
experienced physicians. 

In certain climates it becomes indurated, enlarges enor¬ 
mously, and besides, scirrhosity, abscesses, and ulceration^ are 
common in all climates, as a penalty for violating sanitary 
laws, which can never be pursued for any great length of 
time without a fearful constitutional reckoning. 

Malarious influences emanate from the ground in warm, 
moist regions, where vegetable decomposition tills the air with 
something neither seen nor tasted, but which, nevertheless, 
when inhaled, produces extraordinary disturbance in the liver 
of man. Thus, fever and ague are derived from that source, 
wdiile another condition of the atmosphere in the East Indies 
gives rise to various enlargements and hardness, which defy 
the ordinary resources of medicine. 

Authors have not sufflciently investigated the effects of 
certain, kinds of food in the production of anomalous disorders 
of that viscus. That the profligate use of curry in the East 
Indies—a fiery hot powder made of red pepper, mustard, 
turmeric, and perhaps a dozen other ingredients, which would 
excoriate the skin, externally applied, about as quickly as a 
burning coal,—taken into the stomach at every meal for years in 
succession, must, in the nature of things, derange not only the 


228 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


stomach, but associated organs. So it may be admitted, inas¬ 
much as curry-eaters have indurated livers, that peculiar appe¬ 
tizing compound has some agency on the organ. 

Whiskey, rum, or, indeed, any of the fiery strong liquors dis¬ 
gracefully in request in this whiskey-smitten nation, acts hane- 
fully on the liver. Those who keep themselves stimulated by 
the needless use of distilled spirits, must break down under its 
undermining tendency. Medicine furnishes no cure for an en¬ 
larged or schirrus liver. 

When it becomes diseased in any way, then there is a failure 
to perform the office for which it was mainly designed, 
and, consequently, the whole body quickly betrays its need 
of something it formerly had, in a yellowish, or rather, a 
deadly hue of the skin, loss of fiesh and strength, and waning 
health. 

l^ext, that which is required is a sufficiency of saccharine 
matter, from which are elaborated, by vital processes, elements 
to be distributed for the benefit of the whole body, and perhaps, 
too, for the mind. 

The liver, in short, manufactures sugar. It is not exactly 
sugar of the shops in appearance, but a sweetish paste, that 
takes the name of glucose. 

The mass of the liver appears to be made up, in bulk, of an 
immense congeries of arteries, veins, nerves, lymphatics, bile- 
tubes, ligaments, and a semi-elastic tissue, which serves as a bed 
to keep all those different parts from interfering with each 
other. 

Wlien this natural sugar-mill turns offi more sugar than the 
system requires, it is recognized as a disease known as diabetes. 
nature has but one convenient way of carrying off the excess, 
and that is by dissolving, and floating it away to the kidneys. 
Those organs separate the sugar from the blood in which it 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


229 


arrives, and forwards it to the bladder to be voided. By boil¬ 
ing the urine, the sugar may be collected, very much resembling 
ordinary brown eugar. 


Diseased Livers. 

Severely as the liver suffers from over-excitation by drink¬ 
ing ardent spirits, an instructive article might be written on the 
unnecessary medication to which the whole system is subjected 
by the mistakes of physicians, who blindly pursue a course of 
practice based on a theoretical condition of the liver, for which 
the poor stomach is intolerably dosed. There is no more direct 
means of reaching the liver in any of the morbid conditions to 
which it is predisposed from climate, abuse, or from dissipated 
habits, than through the circuitous route of the circulation. 

Mercury was formerly prescribed immoderately, on the sup¬ 
position that the liver was answerable for at least half the ills to 
which humanity is incident. Salivations, ulcerated tonsils, 
loose teeth, inflamed gums, and even caries of the bones were 
the result of that one-idea practice now obsolete. But the liver 
was too frequently the focus to which nauseous preparations 
were directed, when it was, perhaps, in no way involved. 

It is impossible for any medicine to reach the liver directly. 
There is no tube or avenue opening between the stomach and 
liver. Therefore, it is ridiculous to suppose the latter can be 
acted upon in any other manner than through the blood. 

Some persons, more distinguished for general intelligence 
than their knowledge of anatomy, speak of ulcers, or abscesses 
of the liver, which discharge into the stomach. That is 
positively impossible, unless an opening has been ulcerated 
through various tissues, and lastly, through the walls of the 
stomach, before any such imaginary communication can be 
established. 


230 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Hastily fattened cattle, stuffed with rich food faster than it 
can be appropriately digested, or fed on warm slops, become 
singularly disordered in their liver. Hed spots, ragged, ulcerated 
patches on the upper surface, and enlargement, evidently show 
that properties may be introduced into the circulation, which, 
on arriving at the liver, are arrested, and stopping there, throw 
the organ into a morbid state of action. 

Hypertrophy, induration, and abscesses are conditions of the 
liver in men who have no mercy on themselves by excessive 
indulgence in strong liquors. Women rarely have diseased 
livers. Happily, they have a nicer sense of propriety. Their 
livers seldom become disorganized, or suffer from those hepatic 
woes that beset tipplers. 

But women induce hepatic difficulties by a custom in dress, 
indicated by a yellowish, tallowish complexion, usually asso¬ 
ciated with a depraved appetite. 

Tight-lacing compresses the right lobe, lying just behind the 
short ribs; if the waist is closely girded, that part of the organ 
is pressed into close quarters, which must interfere with a free 
circulation of the various fluids which it secretes, independently 
of arterial, venous, and biliary currents. 

If the bile is impeded in its progress to the gall-bladder, or 
from thence into the intestines, in consequence of ligating the 
waist, very serious consequences are liable to follow. 

Here is found an explanation of an often asked question. 
Why young ladies are so frequently tinged with yellow, accom¬ 
panied by indigestion ? The bile is obstructed by compression 
of the liver, by waists of dresses and belts, and being taken 
back into the system by absorbments, is diffused over the body, 
and escapes through the skin. Jaundice is simply that 
condition,—the bile not flowing ' off through the pipes 
in which it should go, owing either to exterior mechanical 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN 


231 


compression, gall-stones, or an. inflammation which, closes 
them. 

A celebrated manufacturer of corsets, having satisfled her¬ 
self that women will wear them—which is admitting there is 
no necessity for that kind of abdominal support—^has invented 
a substitute. It may be worn with comfort, as it neither com¬ 
presses the chest, ribs, nor the sternum. Her object is simply 
to hold up the bowels, so that they cannot be forced down upon 
the pelvic viscera. Having the confldence of physicians, the 
inventress has extensive patronage, because the contrivance 
actually relieves the pelvic organs from invasions which ordi¬ 
nary stays produce. 


OHAPTEE XVIIL 


Their Growth. 

Men Taller than Women—Male Animals—Physical Aspect—Length of 

Lower Extremities—Osseous Development—Suspension of Gtowth— 

Inner Capacity of the Chest, Broad, Narrow—Short Necks. 

Every circumstance in tlie history of an individnal lifej in a 
physical aspect, must be influenced by laws which govern all 
organized bodies. Even inorganic forms are regulated by fixed 
laws also, since there is nothing transpiring by chance. 

There is a law of limitation in the growth of men and 
women, operating infallibly in the formation of each and all 
tissues, by which proportions are established. 

Men ordinarily are taller than women, and stronger. Males 
of all orders are usually superior in size, and muscular force in 
them is also proportionately superior to that of females of their 
kindred. Such is particularly the case with quadrupeds and 
birds. They are more beautiful, too,—more imposing in their 
physique and bearing. Females are smaller, and destitute of 
those markings or colorings which are distinguishing beauties, 
including manes, fringed limbs, brilliant feathers, and other 
exterior appointments that give character to the males. 

Woman, however, transcends in beauty of form, facial ex¬ 
pression, and in the impression she makes on the spectator. 

Among reptiles, usually, the feihale is the largest. A law 
of positive necessity operates in favor of that oversize above the 
male. The enormous number of eggs some of them extrude, 
or the number of young incubated within their own bodies, 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


233 


re(][mres room for tlie expansion of oviducts in which they are 
carried. 

Thus there are oviparous and viviparous reptiles. Some void 
their eggs to be incubated by the solar rays, while others have 
them hatched in the abdominal cavity. 

^rds, being of a higher type, have their eggs developed so 
that one is voided daily, or once in two or three days, ripening 
so orderly and rapidly too, that a larger pouch is not needed. 
If their eggs all matured at once, as in a turtle, a fish, or in 
thousands of insects, in parcels, which are extruded at intervals 
of one or two weeks, the bulk of the eggs laid in twenty days 
would equal, if not exceed, in bulk the body from which they 
were extruded. 

Some tribes of fishes have amazing fecundity, actually pro¬ 
ducing millions of eggs in a single season. Were they brought 
together, their combined weight would exceed the weight of 
the individual in which they were formed by twenty-fold. 

The rapidity of development of some insect eggs in a single 
day, from mere specs scarcely discernible, into fully distended 
globes almost as large as peas, illustrates in another form the 
extreme activity of vital force when aided by light, heat, and 
moisture. 

Tall or Short. 

Why a man ceases to grow taller on reaching six feet, six 
feet four inches or more, or why growth is ever arrested in 
the process of osseous elongation, is quite beyond the ken of 
modern philosophy. Theories prove nothing, while facts cannot 
be jostled out of sight. Speculations on this point, therefore, 
are to no purpose. 

Admitting that men rarely exceed six feet in any country, 

if a few happen to exceed that ordinary standard of limitation, 
15 * 


234 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


they are called giants. Why women rarely reach the same 
measure, is quite as difficult to explain as the other proposition. 
A difference in height depends almost entirely on the length 
of the lower extremities in both sexes. 

From the crown of the head to the ischiatic knobs,—two 
points on which we sit,—there is not much variation in the 
measure. Males and females have an equal number of bones, 
and the distance between these two starting-points is about the 
same. Below, however, the length of the thigh-bones deter¬ 
mines the stature of the individual. 

Some singular anomalies are noticed occasionally, which 
seem at first view to contradict a received opinion respecting 
the laws of growth. 

George W. Crawford, of Sciota county, Ohio, fifteen years 
of age, in the autumn of 1869, was six feet and one inch tall, 
measuring around his shoulders three feet eleven inches; 
around his hips, forty-two inches ; around the chest, forty-one 
inches; and he weighed two hundred and eight pounds. 

Benjamin F. Kiplinger, of Rush county, Indiana, about the 
i^ame period, who was fifteen years old September 20, 1869, 
stood six feet eight inches, measuring around his shoulders 
fifty-seven inches, forty-six around his chest, forty-six around 
the hips, and weighed two hundred and thirty-five pounds,— 
wearing number twelve shoes! 

Seated at table, on the same level, men and women, taken 
indifferently, appear to be about equal in height, there being 
only a slight deviation from a horizontal line passing above 
their heads. On rising, some are exceedingly tall and others 
remarkably short. The difference is found in the femoral 
bones. From the knee to the instep, the tibia and fibula, or 
leg-bones, are correspondingly short also, to conform to propor¬ 
tions above the articulations. 


THE \y^AYS OF WOMEN. 


235 


At birth the lower limbs are very short and small, quite 
disproportioned to the scale of development of the upper ex¬ 
tremities, which is explained by the well-known fact that they 
receive but a limited amount of blood while in utero. Imme¬ 
diately after birth, blood which circulated in the placenta, 
diverted from the iliac arteries, is then sent into the legs. But 
they seldom attain in females the length of the lower ex¬ 
tremities of males, even when the nutrition is increased by an 
increased flow of blood. Hence, women are generally below 
the stature of adult males. Exceptions to the rule are con¬ 
sidered anomalies. 

Blood is circulated very nearly alike in both sexes, but the 
extension of bones is more actively carried on in boys than in 
girls, in bones below the pelvis. 

This law of osseous development presents matter for con¬ 
sideration in regard to life-insurance investigations. Physical 
signs of longevity in man was a prize essay a few years since, 
published by a Life Insurance oflice of Hew York, abound¬ 
ing in very curious facts not very generally known in relation 
to life limitation. Some of them were as follows: 

First,—Brothers and sisters of the same parentage, reared 
under precisely the same circumstances as regards food, clothing, 
ventilation of apartments, etc., have different statures when they 
arrive at adult age. Yet at birth, and through the developing 
periods of childhood and adolescence, they were apparently in¬ 
fluenced, physically, precisely alike. 

Unquestionably, therefore, there are causes operating dis- 
advantageously, at times, for the growth of parts, if not of the 
whole body. In dwarfs, the deposition of ossiflc material stops 
suddenly. It may happen soon after birth, or at any period 
between the second and third year. Occasionally the process 
of growth ceases in a single limb, or it may in both so exactly 


236 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


at the same time as to leave them of the same length. From 
some unknown cause, essential elements cease to be any longer 
deposited. 

While there is a progressive development in the system, 
and all the mechanism is being enlarged in volume and per¬ 
fected, there is intense activity. By and by, however, the 
law of limitation puts a stop to those long-continued internal 
operations. 

Ossification is then completed, the muscles are full and 
strong. The future secretion and deposition of lime and other 
earthly components of bones, instead of being gathered in such 
abundance as formerly from food, are only just enough to keep 
those solid parts in repair. 

Strength of Bones and their Decay. 

An impression is entertained that bones of tall persons are 
more easily fractured than those of short people. Cylindrical 
bones, as the thigh and arm, when particularly long, are less 
in diameter than the same bones in those of short stature. 

As individuals advance in age, gelatine—the mortar that 
holds the bony particles together like bricks in an edifice—is 
secreted less actively, and its adhesive properties are also en¬ 
feebled. Finally, the quantity is so much diminished, the 
bones of aged persons are easily broken. A sparseness of that 
natural glne explains why their fractured bones unite slowly, 
or sometimes not at all. 

If, as some surgeons suggest, broken bones of short patients 
unite quicker than those of tall ones, all other circumstances 
being equal in respect to age, attentions, etc., it must be due to 
a more rapid circulation in the first, in whom the pulsations are 
quickest and most energetic. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


237 


It is a fact that vital force is strongest in short people. • The 
blood has not so far to move, and there is less retardation of the 
ctirrent from friction, admitting that curves and short angles in 
arteries and veins offer some resistance. 

A general impression is entertained among close observers, 
that longevity appertains to persons rather under size than to 
the tall. 

A broad, full chest does not always belong to a tall man or 
woman. On the contrary, those under size are rarely fragile in 
form, or narrow across the thorax. 

When the inner capacity of the chest admits of a perfectly 
full inflation of the lungs, the prospect of life is greater than 
in a constricted cavity where the organs cannot have play 
enough to oxygenate the volume of blood sent to them. 


Shokt Women. 

When solidiflcation of the leg bones progresses slowly, there 
is commonly an active ossiflcation taking place in the spinal 
column. Harmonious architectural proportions are not main¬ 
tained in women as in men. There are more short females than 
males. Perhaps it may be there is a predominance of short 
men in a thousand, but whether tall or short, the scale of pro¬ 
portions is superior in the tall. 

Among a thousand females of all conditions of life, the 
short immeasurably outnumber the tall—the upper parts of their 
bodies being generally better developed than the lower, which 
are not in exact proportion with the scale above the pelvic arch. 

A lady may have a flnely-developed chest, a round full 
bust, well-set shoulders, and a beautiful neck, while the thigh 
bones are so very imperfectly developed that she is dispropoi- 
tionately short. 


238 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Every internal organ, embracing tbe entire contents of tbe 
thorax, abdomen, and pelvis, are quite as large and perfect in 
function as in those ladies who are tall. The cmly anatomical 
difference is to be found in the length of the bones in the infe¬ 
rior extremities. 

A lady distinguished for a particularly long neck, swan-like 
in gracefulness, may be considered to have an imperfect chest, 
and, therefore, her life expectation is not as good as that of one 
of the same age and physical condition whose neck is an inch 
shorter. 

An explanation of this law of probability is found in the 
osseous structure. All men and women have twenty-four bones 
in the vertebral column, seven of which are usually in the neck. 
Those twenty-four blocks, which, collectively, are called the 
spine, are singularly locked together to prevent them from 
sliding out of place. 

Occasionally an anomaly is recognized in the distribution of 
these bones. There should be always seven in the neck, twelve 
in the back, and five in the loins. But when the neck is un¬ 
usually long, it has eight blocks. That takes one from the 
dorsal range, leaving only eleven in the back. 

That circumstance necessarijy makes the chest just the 
depth of the missing bone smaller, in its vertical direction, 
than it would have been had it remained where it is usually to 
be found. 


Capacity of the Female Chest. 

The lungs and heart, as a natural consequence, are compelled 
to act in a smaller cavity. That being the actual condition, 
those vital organs, on which the preservation of life depends, 
are cramped, and their expansion limited in the performance of 
their functions. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


239 


Tims, if the lungs have not room enough for full inflation, 
nor the heart for its diastole, the consequences are unfavorable 
for long life. 

Here, then, is a plain mechanical demonstration of the 
anomaly of a long neck, and the consequences resulting from 
diminishing the capacity of the chest. 

When the neck is remarkably short, it may have seven bones 
in its composition, but they may be so thin as to be a deviation 
from the type which nature in most cases prescribes. 

ThuSj the chest may be full and broad, while the physician 
recognizes in that kind of short neck a tendency to apoplexy. 
Irregularities or excesses of any kind, 'including sudden excite 
ments, pain, stimulants taken into the stomach, excessive 
paroxysms of rage, hatred, love, or joy, drive blood into the 
brain faster than the veins conduct it away, and sudden death 
ensues. 

With a short neck and large chest the heart acts with great 
energy, forcing blood into the brain and deranging it, on 
account of the inability of the veins to carry it away fast 
enough. This is apoplexy. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


Their Eyes. 

Force of Ocular Expression—Wearing Glasses—Desiring to Appear Near- 

liglited—Fashionable to have Defective Vision—Abuse of the Organ— 

Eyesight of Animals in General—Do without Glasses if Possible. 

For brilliancy, no gems compare with the eyes of a beautiful 
woman. 

Examples are unnecessary for establishing the truth of this 
declaration. There is a fascination, a bewildering influence in 
a pair of bright eyes that moves and, indeed, electrifles the 
roughest specimens of manhood with undeflned emotions. 

Fine eyes are potent engines. When the features are sym¬ 
metrically moulded, eyes of some hues are irresistibly powerful. 
Set off advantageously by long silken lashes, a sweet expression 
is the highest type of female loveliness. 

Men cannot explain, even to themselves, how or what it is 
that moves them so mysteriously in coming into the presence 
of a handsome woman. It is admitted there is an irresistible 
force set in motion, but in what manner it takes such hold is 
not of easy explanation. 

That magnetism—an unseen agent—is the instrumentality 
with which women are made more potent than the strongest 
men, cannot be questioned. It is more than an equivalent for 
large bones and elephantine muscles. 

Men brave tempests, dare enemies in bloody combats, look¬ 
ing destruction in the face with unflinching energy. Woman 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


241 


shrinks back in timid consciousness of being unable to battle 
physically for her rights. In the very posture she assumes, the 
expression she exhibits, and the delicacy of her organization, she 
is more than a match for giants when they offer violence. 

When an incensed woman fixes a withering glance on a 
wretch who threatens to do her wrong, or calls her honor in 
question, the weight of her scorn is unbearable. Such a villain 
suddenly cowers beneath her searching indignation, and wilts 
away from her heroic presence. 

Regardless of color, the eyes singularly harmonize with the * 
features. Complexion and general corporeal expression is a 
study gifted artists have not yet mastered, although they have 
been pursuing their investigations since the days of Apelles. 

Vision. 

Perfect vision is marred, and, indeed, the eyes that were 
perfect, and would have remained so through the ordinary cir¬ 
cumstances of life, are seriously injured now-a-days by the ca¬ 
price of fashion. 

Inflamed Eyes. 

Inflammation of the conjunctiva, the first membrane over 
the front of the globe, delicately thin and transparent, is kept 
slightly inflamed by too much light. The pupil—a round win¬ 
dow through which light reaches the posterior wall of the eye— 
cannot escape injury, if the outer membrane becomes either 
thickened or clouded. Both of those conditions may be induced 
by applying preparations with a view to making the eyes more 
brilliant. It is a weakness of a very extensive class of ladies, 
who, in their desire to make them piercing, or, as they imagine, 

more captivating, cannot be convinced those preparations they 

16 


242 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


use are lamentably injurious. An irritant that inflames any 
surface extends its influence beyond where it is applied. Any¬ 
thing that directly offends the irritable anterior surface of the 
eye, instantly brings a flood of tears to wash it away. Streaks of 
blood are simply an engorgement of minute vessels, which, un¬ 
molested, are invisible behind the conjunctival membrane. 

Inflammations thus exhibited conclusively prove there has 
been some wrong-doing, or incidental exposure to causes which 
produce that condition. 

When an inflammation is established, and the vessels under 
the conjunctival membrane lying on the selerotica, or white of 
the eye, become strongly defined, if not subdued, they may 
shoot across the pupil, forming a veil that would obstruct the 
passage of light. 

When there is a sensation under the lids like particles of 
sand, it indicates the development of projecting fleshy granules 
on the under surflice, which chafe, and still further increase in¬ 
flammation by the movements of the eye. The friction is 
intolerably painful in some cases, accompanied by an intolerance 
of light. Improper applications to the organs, in the form of 
washes or unguents, keep up a continued irritation that may re¬ 
sult in the production of granulation or other equally severe 
afflictions. 

Some persons are predisposed to a preternatural irritability 
of the margins of the eyelids. They have a red, inflamed ap¬ 
pearance, generally aggravated by a sudden cold, a particularly 
strong light, or exposure to winds laden with dust. 

A peculiar ferreted appearance of the lids, which is a chronic 
inflammation of their most exposed mucous surface, is attended 
by another inconvenience that may degenerate into a formidable 
malady, if too long neglected. It is a gluing together of the 
edges of the upper and lower lids by the flow during sleep of 


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THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


24: 


an adhesive secretion, slowly soluble in cold water. Tepid 
water separates them pretty readily. 

A continued , use of cosmetics, apparently perfectly harmless, 
not unfrequently do great injury to the eyes of ladies who 
indulge iii that reprehensible practice of attempting to improve 
upon Nature. 

Eyes are constructed upon philosophical principles, so per¬ 
fect with reference to the laws of light, that they cannot be 
tampered with, nor readjusted easily when once disordered. 
The refractive power of the lens may be altered by violence 
inflicted on the exterior of the globe. 

So much of our knowledge, happiness, and every-day com¬ 
fort depends on a sound, perfect condition of our eyes, we can¬ 
not be too choice of them. They are too precious to be jeopard¬ 
ized under the treatment of ignorant, self-announced oculists. 

Weaking Glasses. 

Many charming faces are completely bereft of the expres¬ 
sion they would have had, unmolested by the silly desire of 
otherwise sensible ladies, for wearing glasses. An unaccount¬ 
able disposition to have it supposed that they have defective 
vision, is another strange phase in the vagaries of fashion. 
To be near-sighted is a coveted grace. 

In some departments of elevated society, nothing is more 
common than to see young ladies harnessed in spectacles, or 
peering through an eyeglass at their familiar acquaintances on 
the side-walk, as though it were extremely difficult to see 
them at all. 

None but fops or idle pretenders of both sexes, who ape 
the artificial manners of some polar star in fashionable circles, 
think of making themselves ridiculous in that particular way. 


244 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN 


It is conclusive evidence of tlieir vanity and mental weakness. 
An eyeglass dangling from a splendid chain is a coveted 
ornament for a drawing-room. To be squinting through it at 
wall-pictures, or closely examining an object that a blind man 
might almost see, by those w^ho have no imperfection of vision, 
is a common folly. 

Everything, near or distant, must be scrutinized through an 
eyeglass. ISTot because they cannot see, but simply because 
it is extremely genteel to be purblind. 

To gaze with profound attention through an eyeglass at a 
horse passing the window, with an avowed inability to deter¬ 
mine what creature it may be by the unassisted eye, is an 
immense recommendation, indicative of polished manners. 
If a lady is ingenious in striking attitudes at the same moment, 
she may consider herself a queen of fashion. 

'No vulgarity is rated lower in the tablet of exquisite 
refinement, than having good sound eyes. Examining those 
to whom one has an introduction, with an eyeglass, as an 
entomologist would scrutinize a bug under a microscope, passes 
for extreme refinement. 

Young misses, fresh from a boarding-school, are in ecstasies 
when they first have possession of an eyeglass set in a chased 
gold rim. They then cannot see those they do not wish to 
recognize—which is a decided step in their education. 


Pkogress of Gentility. 

On the whole, it is deplorable that civilization delights in 
blindness. Possibly a sentiment prevails that one can see 
enough with half an eye. But this, absurd as it is, is as¬ 
sociated with another equally ridicidous habit, that has even 
got possession also of men of the no-brain order. To lisp 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


245 


divinely, and be in poor liealtb, is tbe climax of perfection 
in tbe constitution of a modem lady of unexceptionable social 
position. It gives a finishing perfection to a belle of the 
period. 

These are follies that amuse people of sense for a while; 
but it is, nevertheless, lamentable that folly should have such 
prominent ascendency where genuine g(jod-breeding and wmrth 
of character are at a discount. 

Those who cannot afibrd to be blind voluntarily, like those 
who articulate their words distinctly, have no infiuence where 
near-sightedness and lisping are the criteria of social ex¬ 
cellence. 

Kear-sightedness is most appreciated in circles distinguished 
for opulence. In the country, remote from the baneful influ¬ 
ences and innovations of fashionable folly, the ladies have 
eyes keen enough to discriminate between afiectation and 
malformations. 

A real necessity for glasses appertains to advanced age, but 
rarely as necessary as those who have them to sell would have 
the world believe. 

There is another unrebuked exhibition of vanity or self¬ 
esteem—it is difficult to determine which—viz., having por¬ 
traits and photographs saddled with lunettes at the expense of 
a silly unmeaning expression. Artists dread them, knowing by 
experience of the impossibility of giving any character to the 
picture of a face marred by bows and glasses. 

Portraits of men and women with strongly moulded 
features, full, animated eyes, in harmony with their other 
physiognomical attributes, are deprived of an essential part of 
their force of expression when painted in spectacles. 

It is quite surprising with what tenacity some young, newly- 
fledged clergymen cling to glasses, whose eyes never had a 


246 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


defect in them, on the presumption, it is theoretically pre- 
sumed, that an audience associate with such toggery, profound 
scholarship, and deep theological explorations in the dust 
of ages. 

'No orator who moves the multitude by the power of his 
eloquence, wears glasses. To touch the hearts with fitting 
words, to arouse the deepest feelings of sympathy, or excite 
ferocious indignation by a recital of real or imaginary wrongs, 
the full, unshackled face of the speaker must be seen. Sen¬ 
tences that roll along the aisles like avalanches from the lofty 
summits of mighty mountains, would lose their effect if enun¬ 
ciated in the dark. An orator must not only be seen as well as 
heard, to accomplish the highest results of his burning lan¬ 
guage, but his face, and particularly his eyes, must not have 
their electrical energy intercepted by non-conducting glasses. 

Each one of the special organs of sense is a faithful sentinel 
till the hour of death, if it has not been impaired,—even 
beyond a hundred years, in vast numbers of instances. 

Taste and feeling rarely ever flag in a prolonged longevity. 
When three other senses are destroyed, there is consciousness. 

Through the instrumentality of nerves, the mind receives 
intelligence of impressions, of whatever kind or character. 

Yision ought not to give out till the lamp of life goes out in 
old age. Were we to treat our eyes wdth as much tenderness as 
tliey deserve, we should have distinct vision till the hour of 
death, at the most advanced period of human life. Our eye¬ 
sight would be yearly as perfect when we liave reached seventy 
years, as when we were young, were it not for the abuse of 
them by intense light, gas-jets, and the fatigue to which they 
are subjected by reading small t}q)e-books, and continuing the 
labor too long at a time. 

Wild animals have perfect vision as long as they have ability 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


247 


to forage for food. Birds, too, have distinct vision till they 
die of old age. A goose lives to upwards of eighty years in a 
state of domestication, with no failure of vision. Probably, 
reptiles and fishes also have perfect and accurately distinct 
vision at all periods through their long lives. If whales reach 
a thousand years, and sharks an extended longevity, their vision 
is, unquestionably, perfect and unimpaired all the days allotted 
them. 

Tortoises have been repeatedly found with dates inscribed 
on their shells, indicating almost a century from the date of 
the marking, and they may have been ancient settlers when 
those dates were inscribed; yet their eyesight was keen enough 
for perceiving an enemy, or discovering appropriate nourish¬ 
ment. 

Man, alone, has defective vision prematurely, and usually 
from neglect or over-wmrking his eyes. Domesticated dogs, 
.cattle and horses in the service of men, are subjected, to con¬ 
siderable extent, to" conditions of exposure, which impair our 
own sight. A dog reposing in the corner, occasionally gazes 
into a blazing fire. Horses and cattle are approached with 
caution in the stall, or placed where artificial light acts directly 
upon their eyes. When, under the guidance of their own in¬ 
stincts, the}^ retire, as the fowls go to roost, with the approach 
cf night, and open their eyes early, as the sun gradually rises, 
so that no sudden glare impinges to their injury. 

All animals avoid light, after evening shades set in, unless 
compelled to change their habits. That is the secret of their 
excellent and distinct powers of perception. 

Were we to do as they do, we should have no complaint to 
make of waning vision. 


248 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Changing Axis of Vision. 

Tlie convexity of the eye undoubtedly varies so that 
scarcely any two persons have the same curve, and hence the 
focal distance of distinct vision must necessarily vary. One 
sees accurately at ten inches, another at twelve or fourteen, and 
another at eighteen or twenty inches from the eye. The scale 
of distance varies exceedingly in that respect, in the small num¬ 
ber of a dozen persons. 

In examining the moon, it rarely happens that twenty ladies 
and gentlemen agree in their estimate of its apparent diameter. 
To one or two it may seem about two feet across its face. 
Others are quite sure it is all of a yard, and possibly, it scarcely 
appears much larger than Venus to another. 

By practice,—^beginning, for example, in early childhood 
with the alphabet, and gradually learning to read with facility 
—the visual organs are trained so systematically, that we usually 
all have a focal point of clear and distinct vision at the ordinary- 
distance at which a book is held for reading. Our eyes are 
systematically educated, as our legs for walking, or our tongues 
for articulating words. 

Beginning in childhood, we insensibly instruct our organs 
of sense and our muscles, and finally they all harmonize at last; 
and judgment, which distinguishes man above all the races 
below him, is perfect or defective, according to the develop¬ 
ment of all the powers which belong to his physical organiza¬ 
tion. Perpetual repetitions of the movement give to each and 
all those parts controlled by our volition, the perfection which 
they may attain. 

In early youth there may be some rigidity of the cornea, 
which does not readily yield to the training. If the curvature 
is too T^rominent for seeing at ordinary distances, most con- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN 


249 


venient for looking at a page, and practice in trying to see at 
that convenient distance is not successful, there is near-sighted¬ 
ness. 


N E AK-SiGHTEDNESS. 

When just that condition has been ascertained, parents and 
the near-sighted child too hastily resort to concave glasses. If 
they would resolutely insist upon an unremitting effort to do 
without them, their eyes would gradually accommodate them¬ 
selves to the task imposed, and vastly improve. 

Prematurely putting on glasses arrests the progress of - 
adaptation, which would very certainly take place, although in 
every instance it might not become entirely satisfactory. The 
experiment, however, is worth trying. 

Avoid glasses as long as possible, whether short or long 
sighted, and thus allow the instrument to adjust itself to 
circumstances. The eyes of all land-seeing animals are con¬ 
structed upon the same principle as our own. Light is admitted 
into the back region through the pupil, and there produces the 
same impression as it does in men and women. There is very 
little, if any, real difference discoverable in the anatomical 
structure in day-seeing eyes. But those of wild animals wear 
longer without becoming impaired, than the eyes of domesticated 
animals or man, simply because they act in conformity to natural 
laws. Daylight, while they are ranging over fields carpeted in 
green, or forests in which dazzling rays cannot act directly upon 
them, favors them exceedingly. 

Oculists and spectacle-manufacturers are reluctant to admit 
the existence of this law of ocular adaptation, which is quite as 
readily demonstrated as many other problems of less importance. 

U* 


250 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Vision of Age. 

Before spectacles were invented, there is good reason for 
believing that people had better eyesight than since. Historians 
speak of the blind, but nowhere is there a lamentation over the 
waning vision of old age as in modern times. 

When, in consequence of advancing age, glasses are resorted 
to, they must afterwards be contiiiued. The eye seems to lose 
its power of adaptation to varying'circumstances, whenever arti¬ 
ficial aid is provided. In other words, if glasses are prematurely 
worn—and they generally are prematurely put on, according to 
our theory—they cannot afterwards be laid aside without in¬ 
convenience. 

When the time comes, as it does in the life of each of us, 
that the eye is less prominent than it was in youth, vision is 
less distinct than before, and we meet that flattening of the 
cornea by convex glasses, which apparently enlarges the letters 
of a book, and therefore they are more distinct. 

That is precisely the period to resist the aid of glasses. Have 
patience, and regularly exercise the eyes to reading at the same 
convenient distance they were formerly used, and they will, 
after a while, return to their primitive convexity. 

Will-force produces extraordinary results. Even pulsations 
of the heart have been suspended by it, and the organ again set 
in motion by the same agency. It is even claimed that it is 
possible to exert that mysterious nervous energy, so as to posi¬ 
tively control the volitions of others. 

With the approach of old age, there is a gradual relaxation 
of all the tissues of the body. Those of the eye lose their 
former tension, and the secretion and removal of the fluids 
within the globe on which the refraction of light depends, as 
also the chromatic perfection of the picture on the retinal can- 


JB 



In this figure is represented the eftbct of old age on the humors; Avithout the 
intervention of the glass A. the rays liave a direction which would form the image 
at some distance beyond the retina^ as at B. But. by the convex g'lass A, which 
for example, is the spectacle worn by aged people, the directiorh of the rays of 
light is so corrected, that the image falls accurately on the bottom of the eye, or 
retina. 

hen the convex lens is interposed between the eye and object, as represented 
in the above diagram, the raj'S are made more converging,—so that the picture 
strikes exactly and distinctly on the nerve. People slide their spectacles on the 
nose unconsciously till the true focus is procured. 



The effect of this glass being exactly the reverse of the convex, it causes the 
rays to fall upon the surface of the eye, so far diverging from the perpendicular 
line, as to correct the too great convergence, caused by the convexity of the 
humors. When a near-sighted person has brought the object near enough to the 
eye to see it distinctlj’-, he sees more minutely and consequently more clearly, 
because he sees the object larger, and as a person with a common eye docs, when 
assisted with a magnifying glass. A near-sighted person sees distant objects 
indistinctly, and, as the eye in consequence, rests with less accuracy upon surround¬ 
ing objects, the piercing look of the eye is very much diminished; and it has, 
moreover, a dullness and heaviness of aspect. Again the near-sighted person 
knits his eyebrows, and half closes the eyelids; this he does unconsciously, to 
change the direction of the rays, and to correct the inaccuracy of the image. 
Near-sighted people have but little expression; the countenance loses all its 
dignify, by habitually wearing glasses. 

















































t 






THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


251 


vas, is sluggishly performed. But if we urge them to the 
performance of their office, they begin to receive more vital in¬ 
fluence, and readapt themselves to the work demanded of them. 
In short, the determination and persistency of efibrt may he 
crowned" with success. 

"Without burdening these pages with narratives of eminent 
success by pursuing this course, it is quite sufficient to say that 
failures would be few in making the experiment, if those who 
are making it would on no account deviate from the direc¬ 
tions proposed. 

After weeks of hope, without apparent amelioration, two- 
thirds of those who may have commenced with a strong reso¬ 
lution to be thorough in their attempt at visual restoration, 
become impatient and fly to glasses, and then doubt the possi¬ 
bility of seeing without them in after periods of life. 

Professed oculists are the bitterest foes with which the ad¬ 
vocate for having nature consulted first, comes in contact. To 
a man, they recommend glasses number one, two, three, and so 
on, with a farago of nonsensical reasons for favoring the eye 
when it requires no such aid. 

Duration of Vision. 

Our eyes were designed to last as long as the sense of hear¬ 
ing, taste, or our fingers and toes; and they would, were they 
not culpably abused and overworked by 'the customs and 
habits. 

Blue eyes are thought best adapted for all climates. Black 
predominates in tropical and semi-tropical countries. The 
farther north, the lighter the blue shade; and it is among the 
blue-eyed that the fewest glasses are worn, according to the 
observation of travellers. Such eyes possess qualities for a more 
distinct vision, all other things being equal. 


252 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


Black eyes are lustrous, and carry with them an intensity of 
facial expression superior to gray, or any of the lighter shades 
of color. Black, hazel, etc., if not quite as liable to cataracts, or 
less formidable opacities, fail earlier than blue, subjected to the 
same treatment of brilliantly-illuminated rooms, bright blazing 
firelight, gas jets, and similar sources of injury. 

There are beautiful blue-eyed ladies with blonde hair. The 
iris and hair generally are alike in color. When eyes are too 
light-colored to be sparkling, the hair is ordinarily yellow, 
and the brows thin and colorless. 

With heavy dark eyebrows and black eyes, the expression 
is strong, and not unfrequently imposing. 

Pretty female faces, with small eyes, cannot be roused into 
a look of majesty, although, capable of inspiring poetical 
sentiment. 

A tragic face must have full black eyes. A tragedian with 
light eyes must rely more upon costume for success than on his 
features. A grand, imposing actor, male or female, must either 
possess dark eyes, or divert the attention of the theatre by arti¬ 
ficial devices—voice, dress, and gesture being the handiest 
instrumentalities. 

There are actors whose faces alone, without the utterance 
of a single word, set an audience in a roar of laughter. And 
there are also players of another grade, who command a spon¬ 
taneous burst of a|)plause the moment they come in sight upon 
the stage, before they have uttered a word. 

With a continuance of the present fashion, raging among 
young ladies, to be peering through eyeglasses, not in any 
respect necessary, and universally known to be for the purpose 
of giving the wearer an imagined improved personal appearance, 
twenty years hence there wdll be' some singular anomalies in 
female vision. There will be elderly ladies wdiose tw^o eyes 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


253 


will not agree in focal axis. One eje will be long and tbe 
other short-sighted, the effect of squinting through a glass with 
one while the other is closed. 

Possibly the difficulty may then be met by wearing glasses 
whose convexities are segments of spheres of different 
diameters. 

It is for the future comfort, as it is for the preservation of 
their good looks, for ladies to use their eyes as they were 
intended to be used, together and not one at a time. 

This unaccountable propensity for glasses, and to use them 
on the most frivolous pretences, has been a direct cause of 
thousands of defective eyes. 

Since the introduction of gaslight in dwellings, various 
inroads upon vision have been recognized that were unknown 
in the days of candles and lamps. Oculists find their support in 
cities, particularly wdiere gas and glasses are in the ascendant, 
and not in the country, where primitive customs still prevail in 
respect to lighting apartments. 

Reading or sewing by gaslight, which is too brilliant, requir¬ 
ing protecting apparatus for shading the eyes, is far more trying 
to them than the old-fashioned lights. The oxygen of the room 
is rapidly consumed by gas-burners, leaving a sort of smarting 
sensation and a more rapid evaporation of the tears. We rub 
them, unconsciously, which promotes a more copious lachrymal 
secretion, which is temporary relief. 

Drummond lights, gas reflectors, or a profusion of mirrors, 
gilded frames, and other reflecting surfaces in gas-lighted apart¬ 
ments in common family occupancy, are extremely injurious. 
Such continued stimulus of concentrated luminous rays produces 
internal inflammations of delicate tissues, and engorgements of 
vessels, which culminate in defective vision. All these sources 
of derangement give importance to ophthalmic surgery. 


254 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Gazing at grates of red-hot coal, as many do in their 
moments of mental abstraction, examining pictures by a vivid 
light through a strong magnifier, sitting in rooms habitually 
draped and carj)eted in bright scarlet colors, and reading in 
rapidly moving cars,—are all of them destructive to distinct 
vision, and should be carefully avoided. 

Furniture upholstered with dark colors, and carpets and 
curtains in which those shades predominate, are of far more 
importance where there are children, than has been suspected. 
Weak eyes, and even severe maladies, are sometimes due to 
such unsuspected sources. 


CHAPTER XX. 


Their Teeth. 

Hereditarily Good or Defective—Hot Food—Smoking—Use no Dentifrices of 
a Doubtful Character—Those most Useful—Quack Dentists—Employ 
Men of Science—Cause of Caries—A National Characteristic, etc., etc. 

Many allusions and cautions Lave already been given in 
regard to the preservation of the teeth. But some more ex¬ 
tended observations may be of service to those who have not 
given much attention to the subject. 

A hereditary tendency to an early loss of those important 
organs is quite common; and when it does exist, no course of 
medication is of much value in arresting the progress of decay. 
It is possible to retard their early destruction by precautionary 
measures, but they cannot be saved in their original appearance 
of strength and beauty of structure. 

It is within the course of general observation that defective 
teeth are more common in towns than the country. Different 
systems of cookery, condiments, and seasonings, together with 
the custom of taking coffee, tea, chocolate, and almost every 
dish that comes upon a table very warm, if not really hot, are 
just so many agencies acting directly upon the enamel, till 
openings are made through it to the bony structure of the body 
of the teeth. 

Hot food, ravenous haste in eating under the plea of urgency 
of business, and hot drinks habitually, are unfavorable to the 
health of human teeth. If by their organization they resist 
such influences through a long life, as they do with some 


25G 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


2)ersons, it only proves tlieir powers of resistance are stronger 
in some than in others. 

The tendency of hot food and table-drinks is to disease the 
gums rather than the teeth themselves, in those in whom they 
remain sound, but seem to rise slowly out of their sockets in 
elderly persons. They are also thrown off by the absorption 
of the bony cell in which the fangs are imbedded. 

Each root has a minute orifice at its extreme point, through 
which enters a nerve, an artery, and by their side, a vein to 
bring back the blood sent in by the artery. 

In the body of the tooth is a cavity in which the nerve ex¬ 
pands in a delicate plexus, which is the seat of exquisite pain 
when invaded, in consequence of the crumbling away of the 
walls which protected it. 

Destruction of the Enamel. 

'No branch of the dental profession has exercised the mechan¬ 
ical ingenuity of operators more than devising methods for 
preventing that calamity. If consulted early, when the first 
approaches of caries are discoverable, the arrest of the disease 
should be tried. Gold-fillings have the approval of the most 
experienced dentists. Yarious substitutes have been prepared 
and had a trial, but gold holds its reputation for superiority, 
and is not likely to be superseded. Why it is better than amal¬ 
gams, artificial bone-paste, tin, or any other metallic filling, 
must be sought for in the publications and teaching of dental 
associations and colleges. 

Through those decayed openings, sugar, cold water, etc., 
cause excruciating misery. When the pulp has been once in¬ 
vaded, it is rarely ever afterwards so secured as not to give fre¬ 
quent intimations of its sensitiveness. 

Cracking nuts with the teeth, by no means an uncommon 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


257 


vulgarity, is an abuse that may derange their connection in the 
sockets. There are so many ways of impairing the utility of 
teeth, it is quite hopeless to attempt enumerating them. 

Domesticated animals fed on warm slops at distilleries, on 
kitchen refuse warmed and thickened with meal, with an ex¬ 
pectation of increasing the quantity of milk—quite common 
with families keeping a single cow—do their pet incalculable 
injury. Cracks and exfoliations of the enamel follow such 
feeding. The perpendicular chisels that stand up in their 
teeth, of pure hard enamel, crumble and become black. Cold 
food is safest for them. 

Tobacco. 

An unfortunate opinion prevails extensively, that chewing 
tobacco preserves teeth. It is a popular error that has made 
many a toothless jaw. Grit, inseparable from the weed in 
curing, gradually wears down the teeth by the constant grind¬ 
ing motion, so that some men are met with in whom the tops 
of the teeth are nearly level with their tumid gums. 

Women, happily, are not prone to that abominable, filthy 
vice of chewing tobacco; but they occasionally indulge in some 
of the Southern portions of this country in habits as reprehen¬ 
sible and obnoxious. They rub their gums with pulverized 
tobacco till it produces an agreeable sensation something like 
inhaling a few inspirations of chloroform. It is applied artist¬ 
ically with a brush, quite frequently when the habit has been 
established. Ladies smoke in Cuba. Some dilapidated females 
practise the same disgusting custom with us, but that circum¬ 
stance does not lessen the objections that might be arrayed 
against it. 

Tobacco-chewing is exceedingly offensive to those who do 

not use it. Chewers are nuisances everywhere, and especially 

17 


258 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


in public conveyances and private bouses. Floors saturated 
with saliva, charged with tobacco and spittoons—an American 
contrivance for protecting carpets—are sources of disease. 
Breathing air in apartments where evaporation of such narcotic 
filth is going on, must be exceedingly prejudicial, and, if care¬ 
fully investigated, no doubt, would be found to be the im¬ 
mediate cause of strange eflects upon individuals of delicate 
organizations. 

There are women who virtually unsex themselves by copy¬ 
ing the habits of men of low degree, in the use of tobacco. 
Taking snuff is one of their bad imitations. It is considered 
unfortunate not to be handsome; and old age with its wrinkles, 
is dreaded by all women. But that a homely one should take 
to snuff is perfectly surprising, as she thus forfeits all hope of 
being an object of interest, even to a Hottentot. 

Dentifrices. 

Place no confidence in dentifrices, the composition of which 
is a secret. In this age of science it is a privilege to know 
precisely what we use as food, in food, and for medicine. It is 
prudent to know too, what we are using for our teeth. 

When preparations for cleaning teeth are secret composi¬ 
tions, beware of them. Probably they contain an acid that 
wmuld gnaw into the enamel, or discolor the teeth beyond the 
possibility of restoration to their primitive whiteness. 

Teeth should not be brushed either with pulveidzed char¬ 
coal or pumice-stone, yet both are largely sold for that purpose. 
They insensibly wear away the enamel. To file off dark spots 
would be precisely analogous, only the latter would be quickly 
accomplished, while the other would be a gradual process. 
Thus fluids would reach the bony structure, followed by dis¬ 
coloration, decay, and tooth-ache. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


259 


Detergent soaps are allowable, being soft and free from grit. 
With a soft, flexible brush, soap, with eold water, removes ad¬ 
hering particles of food, and prevents the accumulation of tartar 
about the margin of the gums. 

Immediatel}^ on leaving the table, it should be an estab¬ 
lished habit to cleanse one’s teeth in that manner. Spasmodic 
attentions are to no purpose. Doing it when the thought 
occurs that they have been neglected, does but little good. It 
is by daily care that they are preserved. 

When omitting to brush the teeth, even for a few days, with 
some persons, parasites actually barrow about their necks, and 
build up strong domiciles of calcareous matter, which destroys 
the periostic connections between them and their alveolar 
sockets. 

Tartar, as it is called, a product almost as hard as coral,. 
inhabited, too, by minute beings, which, under a microscope, 
exhibit active habits, should not be permitted to establish colo¬ 
nies in the mouth. 


Dentist. 

When caries appears, consult a dentist, and be careful to 
employ no second-rate one, because his charges are low. There 
are dental institutions and colleges where the whole art and 
science of dentistry is taught thoroughly. Allow no cheap 
operator to prescribe or place an instrument on the teeth. 
Neither permit amalgams of mercury, copper, lead, or indeed 
any filling, to be pressed into a hollow tooth, which has not the 
approval of the magnates of the profession. 

There are quack dentists, who rank next to quack doctors. 
Disk neither health, teeth, nor purse with either. Strange as it 
may appear, there are thousands who place themselves at the 


260 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


mercy of medical and dental pretenders, who would trust 
neither with their wallets. 

A gentleman of ISTew York, a little time since, consulted a 
medical gentleman on account of sore, inflamed gums, tongue 
and fauces. They had resisted a variety of medications till the 
gravity of the case alarmed the patient, and almost destroyed 
his confidence in the science of medicine. 

After examination, shocked at the raw, inflamed appearance 
of the patient’s mouth, looking as though burned, the doctor 
inquired whether he had any defective teeth. On reflection, 
he remembered that he had never discovered but a single decay 
in one of the back teeth, a long while before, which was 
promptly filled, so that his teeth might be considered perfectly 
sound. 

The physician at once suspected the cause of such extensive 
disease of the mucous membrane had its origin there, and 
advised the immediate removal of the filling, and refilling with 
gold. His recovery and perfect restoration was immediate, 
showing there was a metallic poison in the first filling that had 
caused him so much inconvenience and suffering. 


Nationalities in Eegard to Teeth. 

Dr. John Allen, a learned, skilful dentist of New York, 
has collected an immense amount of valuable information 
respecting the history of teeth. 

The body of a man, says Dr. Allen, with all its different 
parts, is composed of only a few simple materials combined in 
certain proportions to give strength and utility to the whole 
structure. Those materials are component parts of the food, 
and, although nutrient substances used by the inhabitants of 
different parts of the globe, appear quite similar, yet the food. 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


261 


provided for thera in various countries possesses the same general 
constituents everywhere essential to human organism. 

Albanians of lesser Asia live principally on milk, cheese, 
eggs, olives, and vegetables. Sometimes they bake bread, but 
often eat their corn or maize boiled. Hippocrates says they 
were very strong in his day. Muscular, with oval faces, ruddy 
cheeks, and an animated eye. They had well-proportioned 
mouths and tine teeth. 

In Central America, north of the Equator, the Mandingos 
have a barbarous custom of filing their front teeth to a point. 
The same extraordinary operation is extensively practised 
among tribes in various parts of pagan Africa. 

In Eastern Africa, particularly, the Ab^^ssinians have beau¬ 
tiful teeth, white and regular. Hubians, and residents of 
countries between Abyssinia and Egypt, distinguished for per¬ 
sonal symmetry, having a dark-brown complexion, also are 
remarkable for their sound, white, strong teeth. 

In Western Africa, and also in parts of Southern Africa, 
including Congo, the negroes are well made, extremely black, 
but noted for their superior teeth. 

A people of that same vast continent, known as Khonds, of 
a dark color, straight and well-proportioned, are also remarkable 
for teeth of a pearly whiteness. 

Turkish tribes of Kiptschak, the Tartars of Kasan, and 
all through that extensive region in the occupancy of bold, 
warlike, indomitably active men, are quite as celebrated for 
fine teeth as for their martial energy and determination of 
character. 

Travellers represent the inhabitants of Eastern Arabia as 
being above the average stature of Europeans of a temperate 
zone. They are robust and active. With oval faces, copper- 
colored broad foreheads, black, bushy eyebrows, dark eyes. 


262 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


quick and restless, their sound white teeth are a remarkable 
national characteristic. 

Arabs generally have sound teeth, even in the jaws, and 
rarely irregular. Unless addicted to chewing betel, they wear 
through a long life unimpaired. 

Between China and Hindustan, the Siamese blacken their 
teeth, and also redden the inside of their mouths with a masti¬ 
catory of lime, caoutchouc, and betel,which (says Dr. Allen), gives 
them a disgusting appearance. 

Betel-chewing is practised extensively among the fellahs of 
Upper Egypt. Their lips and gums look as though they had 
been recently burned with a hot iron. Their teeth wear down 
level with the gums in a few years. 

Tahitans have splendidly developed teeth, but they have an 
abominable custom of inteifering with them, under certain cir¬ 
cumstances—such as extracting some of them. If unmolested, 
they endure white and perfect to extreme old age. 

Hew Zealanders do not exceed the common stature of 
Europeans, and, in general, are not so well made about the 
limbs. Their color is of a different cast, varying from a pretty 
deep black to yellowish, with tolerably regular features. Their 
faces are round, with full lips, large eyes, black hair, straight 
and strong. Like most barbarians, their teeth are broad, fully 
developed, and white. 

Capt. Fitzroy says of the Hew Zealanders, they are like 
those of the Tangians in regard to their dental apparatus. In 
old age they are either all worn down, or present an anomalous 
appearance. 

Those natives residing near hot sulphurous springs or sul¬ 
phur waters, on the borders of the lake of Koturna, have enamel 
on their front teeth yellow, although that does not impair their 
soundness. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


263 


To the eastward of the Society Islands, in the South Pacific, 
are the Gamhier Islands. They are inhabited by a people fairer 
than the Sandwich Islanders. The average height of the men 
is about that of Englishmen, but they are not very robust. In 
their muscles there is a flabbiness, and in old men a laxity of 
integuments: their skin hangs in folds on different parts of the 
body. They have Asiatic countenances, with extremely white 
teeth; but they are represented to fall out at an early period. 

In Easter Island, the most remote from the continent of all 
inhabited islands on the earth, there are finely developed in¬ 
habitants, with excellent features. The women are particularly 
handsome. Such beautiful teeth are nowhere else to be found. 
In the San War group of islands, all the natives have superb 
teeth. The Tarawan Islands, abounding in cocoanuts, fish, 
guava, banian trees, and sugar cane, the people have sound, 
white teeth. 

The Great Yita, one of a group of islands between the 
fifth and nineteenth degrees south latitude, the inhabitants 
are celebrated for their sound teeth. So are the Feejeans. 
In fact, it has.been the remark of voyagers generally, that 
tlie teeth of those distant islanders are always sound, wFite, 
and nearly as perfect as such organs can be, and remain so to 
extreme old age. 

Yanikora, another cluster of islands, is inhabited by a 
black race, who cultivate taro, iguanas, and kava. Although 
small in size, they approach the negro in general physical 
appearance and organization, with countenances singularly 
resembling the ourang-outang,—their eyes being large, deeply 
set, and very much like those of the genuine negro of the 
tropics. Their lips are large and their hair crisp. An in¬ 
veterate use of betel destroys"" their teeth early, which would 
last as long as those of the islanders of whom we have been 


264 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


speaking, were it not for the vice of chewing that abominable 
product of the vegetable kingdom which destroys them. 

The natives of Australia differ from every other race of 
men in features, complexion, habits, and language. They Iiave 
black hair, a cinnamon colored skin, and a dilated nose, with 
high cheek-bones—often an elongated upper jaw, with large 
sound teeth, very rarely defective in any respect. 

Throughout South America, and everywhere on the Pacific, 
all tribes which have been met with from the earliest period of 
Spanish exploration, are distinguished for sound teeth. Ex¬ 
humed skulls exhibiting a condition of the ancestors of all the 
tribes for more than a thousand years before any of them were 
known to European navigators, show what perfect teeth they 
had when living. Even after a lapse of ten centuries, they are 
still white, sound, and powerfully strong. 

All aborigines of Korth America had sound, white teeth. 
E’atives of Eastern Patagonia, according to Dr. Allen’s memo¬ 
randa, are a tall, extremely stout race of men. They are of a 
rich brown, rather of a reddish tint, with broad heads, rather 
flat on the top, a large mouth, thick lips, and prodigiously 
strong teeth. In one of the islands in the Magellanic archi¬ 
pelago, where the men are not more than five feet tall on an 
average, they are quite as remarkable as any race yet dis¬ 
covered, for white, sound, well-proportioned teeth. 

In such estimation are sound teeth among some South 
American Indians, that they actually wear collars ornamented 
with them. Those strange appendages of humanity are called 
Botacudos. The Chaymas, another wild race, very analagous 
in physical appearance and similar in the practice of rites and 
ceremonies, in the estimation of Humboldt, leading a very 
simple life, have fine white teeth. 


THE WAYS OP WOMEN. 


265 


Civilization in Reference to Teeth. 

Civilization has been destructive to teeth. A few, out of 
many, resist those influences which bring on premature decay; 
but a majority of the population throughout the United States 
have either lost some or the whole in both jaws. Where are 
we to look for a cause of such universally defective teeth ? 

Dr. Allen is emphatic in denouncing the flour of which our 
bread is usually made, as the reason why teeth fall into decay. 
If flour were not bolted, but baked as it comes from between 
the stones in grinding, elements essential to the growth and 
reparation of the teeth would be disposed of in the system for 
their benefit. But the phosphate of lime, existing alone in the 
bran, is completely taken out in the process of bolting, leaving 
nothing for the teeth. That is fed to horses, swine, and cattle, 
whose teeth get the beneflt of it, while we seek assistance of 
dentists, which would not be necessary, had we subsisted on 
food that had not been deprived of elements introduced in it 
to keep the teeth in sound working order. 

Dr. Allen, closing his valuable researches on the anatomy 
and general economy of the teeth, expresses himself as 
follows:— 

“ According to our national statistics—1860—there were in 
the United States, 13,868 milling establishments for the 
manufacture of flour and meal, requiring 27,626 men, at an 
annual cost for labor of $8,721,391. Thus you see the number 
of men, mills, bolting-cloths, and dollars, that are employed in 
this great improvement devised by man for changing the pro¬ 
portions of one of the most important constituents in the 
country. 

“ The result of ignoring this mineral element from the staff 

of life is, undoubtedly, to a great extent, one of the most pro- 
17* 


266 


THE WAYS OP WOMEN. 


minent causes of this national calamity (poor teeth), that 
sweeps from the population 20,000,000 of teeth every year. 

The potter cannot make the bowl without the clay, neither 
can good teeth be formed without a due proportion of lime, 
which is abundantly provided for our use upon the outer portion 
of the grain; and in rejecting that portion of the cereals, we 
virtually refuse to use the requisite materials of which the teeth 
are formed. We also deprive ourselves of a due proportion of 
atmospheric constituents, especially in our crowded cities. And 
also of the requisite amount of exercise to promote vigorous 
health and good constitutions. If we would be instrumental 
in doing more good in our profession, let us do all in our pojver 
to diffuse these important truths among the people.” 

In order to form good teeth, the proper materials must be 
used to make them; otherwise they will be defective in 
their structure, and liable to early decay. 

The materials of which good teeth are formed are as 
follows:— 


Phospliate of lime, with traces of fluoride of calcium.67.73 

Carbonate of lime. 3.36 

Soluble salts. 0.83 

Cartilage.37.61 

Fat. 0.40 


The enamel or external covering of the teeth has a still 
larger proportion of the phosphate and carbonate of lime. 
These different constituents are furnished us in the food de¬ 
signed for our use. Other constituents are also thus provided, 
of which the soft tissues are formed. Although there are 
traces of the mineral element in other articles of diet, yet the 
largest supplies are found in the cereals, in the following 
proportions;— 







THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


267 


In 500 lbs. of wbole grain (wheat) there is- 

Muscle material. 78 

Bone and teeth material. 85 « 

Fat principle. 12 

500 lbs. of fine fiour contain muscle material. 65 

Bone and teeth material. 30 “ 

Fat principle. 10 " 


The Creator has not only provided the proper materials for 
building up the human system with all its parts, but he has 
also given us a fixed standard of proportions for each material 
to be used, which we should recognize as correct; but instead 
of doing so, we change the proportions of the mineral element 
(which is deposited in the outer portion of the grain) by bolting 
out nearly two-thirds of it from every barrel of fiour, and dis¬ 
carding it from the staff of life, simply because it is the fashion 
to have our bread made of the finest fiour, that it may be white 
instead of dark. 

I^ow, it is estimated that a healthy child consumes half a 
barrel of fiour in a year; and if this be fine, white fiour, the 
child is denied twenty pounds a year of that portion of the 
grain which contains tlie proper materials for bones and teeth. 
This deficiency of the mineral element in the food causes the 
teeth to be comparatively soft and chalky in their structure; 
and the result is, in this country, where fine flour is principally 
used for bread, there is not one in twenty without more or less 
decayed teeth before they have passed the morning of life. On 
the other hand, those nations who do not change the proportions 
of the mineral constituents in their food, do not lose their teeth 
from decay. This fact is well established by various writers 
upon the physical .history of man, in different parts of the 
w^orld, and is a recognized principle of physiology; and yet, as 
a nation, we are regardless of the consequences, and sacrifice 








2G8 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


many millions of teeth annually. This national calamity can 
be prevented to a great extent by simply popularizing a change 
of fashion. Let the bread of this nation be made from un¬ 
bolted flour. Let us cease to change the fixed standard of pro¬ 
portions in the constituents from which the teeth are made, and 
then we may expect these organs to be well formed, and to 
last as long as the other parts of the system. If this love of 
fashion has too strong a hold upon the public mind to do this, 
let parents, who regard the welfare of their children, ponder 
well this subject, and decide which is best for their little ones— 
fine flour or fine teeth. 

The essence of all arguments advanced to prove that our 
teeth decay prematurely, in consequence of the ill-treatment 
they receive, has been printed and promulgated from so many 
reliable sources, that it is lamentable no heed is given to 
such important information. 

Phosphate of lime, which is essential to the good condition 
of teeth, is carefully sifted out of flour that bakers may have 
white bread to sell. The bran contains it. That being con¬ 
sidered of no real value, though a little better than nothing, is 
given to swine, cows, and horses. Therefore there is fed out 
to domestic animals the most important element in grain, 
which, if used in human food, would insure better teeth and a 
higher development of many silly brains. 

Because this important fact is of immense consequence to 
remember, that parents may pursue a course that might secure 
sound teeth for their children, the statement, like some other 
physiological lessons, has been often repeated in the foregoing 
pages, at the risk of being considered unnecessarily tauto¬ 
logical. 


CHAPTER XXL 


Their Hair. 

How it is Abused—Desquamations—Depilation—Excessive Growth—Bald¬ 
ness—Coverings for the Head—Luxuriant Hair—Preservation—Hair- 

Dyes—Objections to them—Effects of Lead Preparations—Sulphur. 

W OMEN have fewer vices than men, but they have stronger 
prejudices. Whoever or whatever is liked they love; and when¬ 
ever they hate, it is with the spite of a demon. 

The opinions of women in regard to propriety and personal 
appearance allow of no interference; and in doing that which 
is actually detrimental to themselves, if satisfied it is the custom 
of a majority of the sex, they cannot be easily persuaded to 
change their sentiments. Reasoning is of no nse with those 
who cannot be moved by arguments when they run counter to 
their wishes. 

Women bear misfortune with heroism, but ridicule cannot be 
endured. Hunger, thirst, and innumerable privations are borne 
with becoming fortitude; but when they are objects of jest, in 
the way of derision, if no other way of escape presents, suicide 
is boldly perpetrated. 

Hothing quite so completely engrosses their thoughts as 
dress. It is an idol of their adoration, and, therefore, an ever¬ 
present subject of contemplation. A woman unfashionably 
clothed had better be in a tomb, if she has aspirations for posi¬ 
tion. They also worship jewelry, especially in the form of 
rings, bracelets; and, above all, diamonds take such hold of 


270 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


them, that they are fashionably considered anchors which will 
hold a ship at her moorings through all the storms that threaten 
the stability of social life. 

One of the first thoughts of a woman, whether a queen or a 
chambermaid of a second-rate hotel, is to have her hair taste¬ 
fully dressed. Were the house on fire, or an enemy sacking 
the city, a true woman would fiee with reluctance from impend¬ 
ing ruin, if her coiffure were unfinished. 

A woman’s hair is an ornament which serves her longer 
than the flushes of health, and it would remain beautiful, thick, 
strong, and ornamental quite into advanced age, were it not 
badly treated. Because they are perpetually doing something 
to injure it, it is spoiled. As in the practice of other violations 
of sanitary laws, some individuals have such a fountain of 
vitality as to resist influences which destroy others; so in 
respect to the human hair. Some ladies are remarkable for its 
profusion and fine color late in life, while most of the sisterhood 
contrive to thin it out and destroy it, unknowingly, of course. 

A woman’s hair is an ornament, independently of an im¬ 
portant service it performs in her vital economy. 

How Injured. 

Because they are always endeavoring to improve its appear¬ 
ance by unremitting attentions, they are exceedingly apt to 
deprive themselves of the full development of a thickly-set 
head of hair by too much manipulation. 

Some of the self-imposed cares which contemplate an im¬ 
provement of their personal appearance, medicated washes, 
pomatums, etc., to their hair, do it an injury. Such violent 
discipline as it is subjected to with combs, not only breaks 
individual hairs, but inflammations are induced in the scalp 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 271 

wliicli impair the office of the bulbs by raking the cnticnlar 
surface too severely. 

Females so circumstanced by their low state of civilization 
as to rarely dress their tangled locks, have an immense growtli 
of it. Squaws, particularly, who are habitually bare-headed in 
all conditions of weather, not only have a profusion of hair, but 
it is strong, long, and so well set, that even combing, a process 
only occasionally undertaken, neither loosens nor breaks it. 
Exposure, therefore, to the open air is exceedingly conducive 
to a healthy condition of that natural covering of the head, 
which performs an offica in relation to the brain of which 
physiologists have as yet a very imperfect knowledge. 

Not satisfied with giving a parallelism to hairs in combing, 
when masses are twisted into cords or closely braided, the strain 
given at the roots not only injures the cell from whence each 
hair springs, but the hair itself is maimed, and, its connection 
so disturbed, it becomes brittle, breaks easily, or falls out 
entirely. 

This explains how the comb becomes laden with hair at each 
repetition of combing. Ladies are alarmed at it, and puzzle 
themselves for a reason of such a phenomenon. But nature 
would rarely be at fault, if its processes were not grossly inter¬ 
fered with by ruthless hands. 

Women would become bald like men, were their bonnets as 
badly contrived as hats for excluding air. Being light, gener¬ 
ally of open work, which gives a free ventilation, perspiration 
escapes, and an increased temperature of retained air is pre¬ 
vented. Then, again, they seldom cover the head, even with 
their light feathery gear, more than a few hours at a time in 
the course of twenty-four hours. The materials of which their 
bonnets are fabricated are of a texture far more favorable 
for the protection of hair, or rather non-interference with it, 


272 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


than felt or stiffened glazed pasteboard, made impervious by a 
coating of gum-shellac in all kinds of modem hats. 


Hats. 

A few manufacturers, having become enlightened in regard 
to the importance of having the same temperature within the 
hat as outside, have small orifices made in the top or sides, 
which no way mar its beauty. Yentilation, secured by small 
apertures, is philosophical; and had hats been so constructed 
from boyhood, they would probably have saved many from 
baldness whose heads have not a hair on the top. 

Desquamations. 

Desquamations of the scarfskin, in a mealy, white sort of 
powder, under the common name of dandruff, is wholly due to a 
protracted chronic infiammation of the scalp. Successive crops 
are thrown off, and they continue to be just as long as the hair 
is kept too much on the strain, by being pinioned with side- 
combs and firmly-fixed pins. 

Whenever the slow state of inflammation continues 
for a considerable time, patches of hair come out, leaving 
bare, bald spots which are rarely ever reclothed with another 
crop. There is a vital tenacity in the bulbs which holds out so 
that thin solitary hairs, short and sickly, give a hope of a 
restoration, but they possess but little strength, and seldom 
have much color or vigor. 

Cases are cited, when, after partial baldness, new and vigor¬ 
ous hair shoots forth; but that depends more on the constitu¬ 
tional vigor of the individual than on drugs, pomatums, or other 
miscalled hair-restoratives. 

When hair does reappear, it is certain the cells which, in their 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


273 


aggregation, constitute a bulb, are intact. If they begin to secrete 
good bair, of a quality wliicli was raised in youtli, it must be a 
gratification, and the secret of it is the vital energy of the system. 

Such bald places as have been described peculiar to women 
who bestow the most care upon their hair,—a reason for it is 
theoretically imagined to be the growing propensity of invisible 
parasites. But it is quite doubtful whether such mites are 
operating as extensively as supposed. In fact, whether any 
such destructive invisibles infest hair that is so often combed, 
brushed, and otherwise variously treated, is questionable. 

A Bald Woman. 

A perfectly bald woman is extremely rare ; still, there are a 
few. Those partially so are common. Wigs are so ingeniously 
fabricated, that it would be difficult to determine which has suc¬ 
ceeded best, Nature or Art. A system of hair-dressing, com¬ 
mencing with the day, leaves it roped, cabled, and pinioned, as 
though each mass were a prisoner. 

With such a condition of the head, an arrest of depilation 
could hardly be expected. The first step towards improving 
the secretion of hair, is to abandon severe tension, and the next 
measure should be to dispense with caps night or day. 

A coarse net, merely sufficient to keep the hair from falling 
into disorder, is the only covering that should be worn. No 
tonic application will compare with pure cold water, next to air, 
which holds the first place. Its value is demonstrated in the 
immense development of hair on the heads of those who wear 
neither hats, caps, nor bonnets. 

Some ladies are deluded with a theory that hair is kept soft, 
pliable, and glossy, by being covered with oiled silk. With 
that expectation, those more than usually solicitous for its pre- 


274 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. “ 


servation, on tlie appearance of deterioration, fly to that perni¬ 
cious course, and thus actually hasten a catastrophe they are most 
anxious to avoid. 

When a luxuriant growth of hair floats about so much un¬ 
heeded by young misses as to be troublesome, the extent of 
confinement to which it should be subjected is the use of a net. 
Exhalations are not then impeded. If not as freely evaporated 
from the cranial surface as from the neck, face, and hands, of 
the roots of which such frequent mention has been made, will 
surely take on a morbid action. 

Extraordinaey Growth. 

Yery tall, slender, fragile young ladies, who develop prema¬ 
turely,—that is, present all the physical signs of perfect 
womanhood from thirteen to fifteen, are generally distinguish¬ 
ed for a profusion of long, soft hair. It is related that one of 
those delicate, and certainly too quickly-made women, who 
leaped, as it were, from childhood into the full proportions of a 
woman, without possessing a corresponding mental development, 
had such an unnatural growth of hair as to cause her death. 
It grew several inches in twenty-four hours, and consequently 
exhausted the vitality of her system in an unprecedented man¬ 
ner. Such examples are rare, but occur frequently enough to 
become matters , of physiological record. 

When it is apparent the development is in excess, the 
quantity and growth of the hair being wholly disproportioned 
to the rest of the body, and, therefore, self-evidently diverting 
nutrition from other channels, medical counsel is advisable. 

Advice from old women, just because they are old, is not 
prudent. Hundreds of them in large communities are plethoric 
with receipts for human afflictions; but neither their opinions, 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


275 


nor their ointments,—commonly farragos of incompatibles, chem¬ 
ically considered,—should be accepted. They may succeed in 
making water-gruel, spreading mustard plasters, or understand 
the way of preparing catnip-tea; hut if health is a boon, never 
trust to any for prescriptions for preserving it, who are not con¬ 
versant with the law of life. 


Sign of a Vulgarian. 

There are a plenty of bold men who might have been 
clothed in their own hair instead of a barber’s wig, had they 
conformed to the usages of cultivated society—^leaving their 
hats in the entry before entering a drawing-room. It is one of 
the rudest and most common of vulgarities, and therefore 
deserving a severe reprehension, that in some of the Southern 
States a man’s hat is a permanent fixture to his head. Whether 
they are removed at night is a question. Certainly, they wear 
them in the presence of ladies as tenaciously as orthodox Israe¬ 
lites do theirs in a synagogue. If anything smacks of extreme 
vulgarity, it is to see a person claiming to-be a gentleman, sit¬ 
ting in a parlor in conversation with ladies without removing 
his hat. 


Antiquity of Wigs. 

Revelations from the mummy pits of Egypt show that 
subjects of the Pharaohs of the male gender all wore wigs. They 
were extremely light and skilfully made of delicate materials, 
which permitted a free ventilation. At present, and indeed for 
many centuries past, since mummy-making was abandoned. 
Orientals have their heads closely shaven about every ten days. 
Even male infants pass through the same operation, and have 
it continued as long as they live. As mummies were shaven 


276 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


as far back in the history of ISTilolic civilization as any authentic 
evidences can he found, it appears that in exchanging wigs for 
the tarboush or red felt skull-cap—barbering the caput was not 
omitted. It is a national custom in the East of extreme 
antiquity. 

It is an opinion, founded on the supposition that vermin 
have always been such a source of personal annoyance in Egypt, 
that the only way of escaping from them was to cut off the 
hair where one variety principally burrow. Barbers are very 
common in the cities of Egypt, plying their razors on the heads 
of customers by the wayside at all hours. They use no soap, 
but simply moisten the hair with water, then pare the cranium 
as smoothe as an eggshell. 

Females in that same vermin-infested country cultivate long 
hair like other women. They are less exposed to camels, don- 
kies, dogs, and goats, than men, and hence less liable to the 
tribulation to which the other sex are exposed from their 
intercourse with those animals. 

Pkemature Loss. 

A premature disappearance of hair, like a premature loss of 
teeth, results from neglect, or, in other words, in consequence 
of not taking proper care of either. It is asserted in a popular 
theological work, that teeth were never intended to ache. But 
they do, and generally those who deplore their loss are very 
much to blame. 

Hair being a secretion directly from arterial blood through 
the agency of a peculiar glandular apparatus, intimately asso¬ 
ciated with cells from whence it shoots forth, if any violence is 
inflicted on them, their function is interrupted, and if that 
violence continue, they die and are obliterated. 

A beautiful network of vessels and nerves surrounds each 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


277 


hair bulb. The vascularity is apparent under microscopic in¬ 
spection. Therefore, the less we do in dressing the hair beyond 
keeping it orderly, the better. By frequently cropping, it is 
supposed to thicken the hairs at their base, and encourage a 
more vigorous growth. To some extent, that may be true. 
When short, air is more freely admitted to the scalp, and in¬ 
sensible, perspirable emanations escape without raising an 
unhealthy temperature when pent up in ordinary hats, silk caps, 
and fur head-dresses. 

The whole secret of having luxuriant hair is to keep it suffi¬ 
ciently loose for a free access of air, and never resorting to oils, 
pomatums, or bear’s-grease, however sweetly scented to disguise 
their origin in lard, cotton-seed oil, or goose-grease. 

'No preparation compares with pure cold water, for giving a 
gloss and vitality to a lady’s hair. I7othing equals it, and being 
within the reach of all, they have the means of securing a 
precious boon without money or price. 

Geay Hair. 

Another point in regard to hair relates to its color. Ladies 
become gray, occasionally, while they consider themselves 
younger than they really are. It is no evidence of old age to 
have white or gray hair as early as when just emerging from 
their teens. It is a hereditaiy affair in such cases, and shows 
itself througli one or two generations. Nor can a defective 
secretion of coloring matter be restored by any art or applica¬ 
tion known to science. 

It has been said.the Chinese have a mode of meeting the 
difficulty by taking something into the stomach that supplies 
the blood with an element for restoring the hair to its original 
color The chemists doubt it, and they know quite as much 


278 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


and far more of science than people of the flowery central 
kingdom. 

Hair-dyes are exiensiyely manufactured to cover up those 
premature indications of age, about which some ladies are 
extremely sensitive, without reflecting upon the fact that it is 
an incidental circumstance, sometimes quite independent of 
longevity. 

Moral objectio-ns are urged against the use or resort to hair- 
dyes, on the score of its being a deception. But ladies practise 
other deceptions quite as heinous, and if one is wrong, the 
other is equally reprehensible, although no public censor has 
yet had the courage to particularize what those deceptions 
may be. 

If the color of an edifice does not suit, the proprietor gives 
it another to meet his views, without causing any unpleasant 
comments of those passing by -as to his right to interfere with 
a natural process of decay that is going on, or the moral ter- 
pitude of covering up a color which he does not like with 
another more acceptable to his taste. 

Ladies have the same inalienable right to color their fiery red, 
yellow, or gray hair to black, brown, or any other tint which 
makes it more conformable to their individual standard of 
beauty, without scruple or apology. 

It is a duty to look as well as we can to other eyes. If we 
can appear younger than we are by a little beet-juice on the 
cheeks, or have the hair at fifty look as it did at eighteen, 
there is no more wickedness in doing so, than in wearing 
artificial teeth. 

If it is an offence in the sight of heaven to color our hair, 
it must be an offence also to substitute new clothing for thread¬ 
bare garments. Tlie moment waning humanity attempts to 
rejuvenate in external appearance, there are troops of excessively 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


279 


good people who denounce it with holy horror, as a profana¬ 
tion and an unpardonable offence against Christian propriety. 

We are advocates for harmless improvements in our ex¬ 
ternal appearance, even if it relates to the substitution of new 
clothes for old ones. As the hair first indicates the decrease 
of vital force, there is nothing criminal, or particularly offensive 
to the public sentiment in keeping up cheerful appearances 
to conceal the melancholy discovery that we are no longer 
young. 

No one is so weak as to suppose that by staining the 
cheeks or coloring the hair, either will prolong their stay on 
earth, or prevent them going to that far-off country from 
whence no traveller returns. To remain at a stand-still point 
and he forever in the bloom of youth, with no indications of 
having passed a meridian, cannot be expected. But it is 
gratifying to some to conceal their infirmities, but not so easy 
as to cover up wrinkles or mount a wig. 

Through the instrumentalities of art;, ladies succeed ad¬ 
mirably in covering up many evidences of having been in the 
land of the living considerably longer than they are willing 
to acknowledge. 

Pharmaceutical preparations for external and internal 
administration, of no value whatever, are articles of commer¬ 
cial importance, because they are represented to do so much 
towards the rejuvenation of antiquated females. They cannot 
be convinced of the imposition, so strong is the desire to 
appear in perpetual vigor. An active trade in hair-dyes, under 
the title of restorers^ regenerators^ invigorators^ etc., therefore, 
is mainly sustained by those of both sexes who fancy gray 
hair speaks too plainly of age. 

Do hair-dyes interfere with the health of those who apply 
them ?* 


280 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Hair-Dyes. 

Occasionally frightful accounts of their poisonous effects 
make excellent sensational paragraphs, and aid the sale of 
some new preparation that is represented to contain no in¬ 
jurious properties. 

Under the impression that the skin absorbs fluids, hair- 
dyes are occasionally denounced. It is very questionable 
whether any cuticular imhibation can take place. Experiments, 
carefully conducted to determine whether it is possible for the 
skin to absorb any kind of fluid in which the whole body had 
been immersed for hours, and varied in temperature, it could 
not be detected in any of the organs^ or in the secretions or 
excretions; nor by weighing before and after, was there any 
loss more than might reasonably be expected by evaporation. 

Therefore, hair-dyes are not, and cannot be absorbed. It 
is possible to irritate the scalp with an acrid preparation. If 
there are abraded surfaces, cuts, scratches, or open ulcerations, 
then it is quite probable there might be both a local and a 
constitutional disturbance. Hut if no such conditions exist, 
then it is idle to dwell on the effects of a hair-dye, even if it is 
made up of such materials. 

That lead may be held in solution to a very small extent in 
water drawn from lead pipes, in which it has remained con¬ 
siderable time, is not doubted. Some persons are extremely 
susceptible to its influence in the minutest form, while others 
are in no way molested by it. Thus, palsies are often traced to 
that source, and it is quite possible those supposed to have been 
partially or wholly paralyzed by hair-dye, received the lead in 
the water they drank, and not by its external absorption. 

Most of the dyes have the reputation of being made of lead 
and largely of sulphur. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


281 


Lead pipes are objectionable, but it would be expensive to 
introduce a substitute. Millionaires only could afford to tap 
street mains with silver or glass tubes of sufficient strength to* 
resist pressure from without or from within. Municipahties, 
boards of health, and chemists are convinced, by thorough 
investigation, that lead in solution in lead water pipes is so 
minute in quantity, as not to endanger public health. As well 
might printing be abandoned, and books and papers written 
with a pen, as before the invention of type, because one com¬ 
positor in one hundred thousand has benumbed fingers in 
consequence of lead in their composition. 

There is a vital chemistry—a preservative force constantly 
operating for the protection of the body—separating, carrying 
away, or neutralizing poisonous properties taken into the 
stomach in aliments and water, which, if allowed to remain un¬ 
changed but a little time, would be productive of painful con¬ 
sequences. It is in that way that lead poison is disposed of 
before so much of it accumulates as to become unmanageable 
by that conservative vital force which is a watchful guardian 
over organic life. 

Some persons are infinitely more susceptible to certain im¬ 
pressions than others. On the whole, we must be reconciled to 
the contingencies of modern civilization. It would be absm'd 
to abandon thousands of. conveniences because it is possible 
some of them might raise a pimple, and thus mar the beauty 
of a fine face. 

By no means run a needless risk in an effort to improve 
personal appearance; but in the application of hair-dyes, no 
danger need be apprehended, if the skin is not broken, and the 
scalp is free from ulcerations. 

Simply moistening the hair cannot in any way conduct the 

fluid into the system. Hairs are not tubes which may be filled 

18 * 


282 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


at tlieir outward extremity, like a bottle ; nor are they hollow 
cylinders, through which a stream may be conveyed to the 
skull. Hair performs no such function. The fluid of which 
they are formed is taken directly from arterial blood, flowing 
from the base outwardly. Ho inverted action can take place. 
Heuralgic twinges, numbness, or giddiness, from the use of 
hair-dyes, are not produced by its absorption. If at all, it is 
by evaporation, and inhaling the vapor into the lungs, and 
thus conducting the poison to the circulation. 

Hair-dyes contain sulphur. That, too, is denounced on the 
false supposition that it creeps insidiously through the hair, 
like a sand-gigger, into the system. Irritation is not absorp¬ 
tion. Continued applications of solutions of lead or sulphur 
would unquestionably become irritants, and they indirectly 
affect the general health. A palsy of the muscles about the eyes, 
or sides of the face, or of the broad, flat occipito frontalis that 
covers the top of the head, from hair-dyes, must be extremely 
fare; and then, rather from sympathy, than a direct action of 
the dye to the extreme twigs of the flrst and second branches 
of the flfth pair of nerves, which are finely dispersed in the 
facial muscles. 

Herves of motion emanate from the vertebral column, 
while those of special sense have their origin in the brain. 
Threads of the superior, middle, and inferior facial nerves 
which control tlie muscles on the sides of the face, are wholly 
beyond and independent of twigs from quite another source 
distributed to the hair bulbs. 

There is no valid physiological objection, therefore, nor 
pathological, to staining white hair black, brown, or yellow. 
If mixtures contain pulverized cantharides, or any powerful 
irritant, of course uncomfortable consequences will follow. 

Some hair-dye manufacturers claim that they restore the 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


283 


hair to its original color. That is a mistake, since it can only 
be accomplished by a natural process, the tint being carried to 
the bulbs by arterial action. Chemically changing the color is 
not a restoration, and, besides, it fades out in a few days, if 
neglected. 

Vegetable dyes are always preferable to metallic. Turks, 
Persians, Egyptians, and other Orientals, who glory in their 
intensely black beards, have them stained by decoctions and 
inspissated juices of plants. Inmates of harems, too, avail 
themselves of simple products of the vegetable kingdom for 
their raven locks. 

Sulphur is extensively used in American hair-dyes, but 
that need not excite alarm^or apprehension. When applied, as 
it often is, to the whole surface of the body in the form of an 
unguent for cuticular affections, in baths or internally, no 
baneful effects follow. How much less direct, when simply 
applied to the hair. 


CHAPTEE XXIL 


Their Feet. 

Can’t make tkem Small Enougli—How they ape Inj ured—Origin of Coma 
and Bunions—Tight Shoes—Enlargement of the Toe-Joints by Com¬ 
pression—India Rubber—Evil of High Heels—Remedy for Pains and 
Deformities. 

Having adverted to the painful consequences of wearing 
garments that fit too closely about the chest, without the re¬ 
motest expectation of gaining converts among those for whom 
these observations have been written, the consideration of 
another evil of serious moment to the every-day comfort of 
women, is a subject not to be overlooked by them. , 

It being admitted that ISTature is superior to art, it is extra¬ 
ordinary that women of sense continue to torture themselves, 
with an apparent resolution to compel FTature to sanction their 
follies, notwithstanding the most positive and undeniable 
proofs that have been given in public lectures, and in printed 
volumes, to explain intelligibly the injurious effects of tight- 
lacing, women are as obstinately opposed to any change in that 
respect, as they would be to a revolution that would abridge 
their freedom, or interfere with cherished opinions in regard to 
their moral duties and obligations. 

Feet were designed to be used in walking, and it must be 
admitted that their anatomical structure admirably fits them for 
sustaining the weight of the body. 

An architectural arrangement of seven irregularly-shapen 
bones of the instep, brought together in a manner to form two 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


285 


arches, unequalled in strength and adaptation for the purposes 
contemplated in their structure, needs only to be examined 
attentively to convince a sceptic that the evidence of design is 
too forcibly demonstrated in the mechanical adjustment of that 
part of the foot, to be questioned by a sane mind. 

There was a necessity contemplated for giving the lower 
extremities peculiar strength. The feet are complicated 
machines, managed by a multitude of vessels, cords, nerves, 
ligaments and voluntary muscles, and yet, with all their com¬ 
plexity, if not ill-treated, they rarely get out of order. They 
would outlast some of the apparently higher organs, and are 
always in readiness for use when properly treated. 


Dissatisfied with ISTatube. 

W omen are notorious for being dissatisfied with that part of 
their own organization. Some of the kindest-hearted, sym¬ 
pathetic ladies, are intolerably severe upon their own feet, 
which they torture without remorse, when it would distress 
them painfully to witness the struggles of a fly in a spider’s 
web. They comment, without apology, on the feet of other 
women. 

They are harder upon their own feet than on the doubtful 
reputation of a rival, and recklessly tamper with their pedal ex¬ 
tremities to their own discomfiture. 

A small foot is more prized by some women than a full 
purse. She is a bold female who prefers comfortable shoes, if 
they appear to be large, while millions court the applause of 
fools who pretend to idolize little feet. 

Laws of proportion are studied by artists in living beings; 
one may have a large head, another long fingers, a plump 
hand, or a coarse and angular pair of shoulders. Some are dis- 


286 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


tingiiislied for short limbs, others are stilted up on immensely 
slender legs, hardly larger than the slender supports of a 
flamingo. 

As people vary in dimensions, weight, strength or graceful¬ 
ness, so their feet vary, hut they are always precisely of the 
size they ought to be, to sustain the pressure from above. 
Unfortunately, ladies, as a general observation, do not see things 
in that , light. An arbitrary ruling of the votaries of fashion 
has decided that feet must be small to be elegant. This is the 
reason why distorted feet are almost universal among women 
who are removed, by fortunate circumstances, above the lower 
stratum of society. 

They patiently submit to severe grievances without com¬ 
plaining, but if their feet happen to be larger than the standard 
of gentility requires, their lamentations, though not always 
audible, are, nevertheless, nursed in secret through years of 
hope and ambition to be remoulded. 

From the vanity of some ladies, whose thoughts are more 
concentrated on their feet than their education, it impresses 
spectators with an idea that they think more of them than they 
do of the culture of their minds. 


Abnormal Conditions. 

Corns, bunions, incurvated nails, callosities on the heels, 
riding toes, distortions, chilblains, and many other troubles of a 
less grievous character, are each and all of them the results of 
wearing such shoes as most commonly do not fit them, in conse¬ 
quence of determining to wear those which are too small. 
Tight shoes are the immediate agents in the production of all 
those pedal woes. 

If small feet have their worshippers in worthless admirers, 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


287 


tliere are those who view with sorrow a deplorable progress of 
that phase in civilization which cripples women in order to 
make them satisfied with themselves. 

Swellings, cedematons enlargements of the joints, especially 
of the great toe, or a doughy fulness of the ankles, increased 
by too tightly-laced hoots, are all the results of voluntary abuse. 

By mistake, boots and shoes may be too small, but where 
there is a determination to conform to a prescribed standard, 
the wearer is not to be bluffed ofi by pain, or the outcry of 
oppressed flesh and blood at the point of pressure. 

Continued compression cannot be endured long without dis¬ 
arranging the anatomical relations of the bones. The foot is 
built up of twenty-six bones, no two being alike, of the same 
weight, size, or shape, besides one or two additional ones, not 
always constant, called sesamoiUs^ resembling split peas. 


Development of Extra Bones. 

An extra bone may be generated to meet certain contin¬ 
gencies. These sesamoids are two, three, or even four in 
number, depending on circumstances affecting the particular 
region where an extra bone may be developed. 

Originally, only two exist, and these are at the base of the 
large toe, being props for lifting the long flexor tendon farther 
from the articulation, to increase its power. Bunions are an 
inflamed thickening of the periosteum and an enlargement of 
the ends of two bones making the great toe joint. 

If there is pressure at that point, long-continued inflamma¬ 
tion sets in. * The irritation extends down from the skin to the 
periosteum,—the membrane immediately investing the bone, 
which thickens, becomes puffy and exceedingly sensitive when 
its vitality is roused. 


288 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Eacli tissue is thickened, and the exterior becomes red and 
painful. Unless all pressure is immediately removed and ap¬ 
plications made to reduce the inflammation, matter forms and 
sometimes is copiously discharged. 

If not opened with a lancet,—the pent-up matter being 
allowed to remain, the bone may become diseased, which 
greatly complicates the misfortune. 

Ulceration leaves the joint a little enlarged, even when 
treated skilfully. ]Sfo shoe ever flts precisely or easily, after 
the periosteum has once been roused to inflammation. 

Topical applications are only temporary relief. It is pre¬ 
posterous to think of a radical cure without removing the 
cause. 

‘ Another tribulation connected with uncured bunions, is the 
spongy enlargement of the long metatarsal bone to which the 
great toe is attached. Once enlarged, it seldom ever falls back 
to its normal dimensions. As a natural consequence, a shoe 
worn over it reveals the distortion, giving that part of the foot 
an unsymmetrical appearance. 

Persons are constantly met with one or both large toe-joints 
so much enlarged as to immensely distort the shoe. Every 
step is attended with torture. 

When a bone becomes diseased, there is an exaltation of 
vitality of a peculiar character. In health it is of a low order, 
just sufticient to connect it with a living system, otherwise it 
would stand in the relation of a foreign body, not to be 
repaired when injured or governed by laws of the general 
economy. 

The nerves in the bones are extremely attenuated, while 
the circulation of arterial blood is sent to the remotest section, 
carrying in solution materials for growth or repair. Yet even 
such slender threads, communicating as they do with nervous 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


289 


centres, when contused or invaded, immediately communicate 
the fact. An injured bone cannot be pacified easily. Medica¬ 
tions for them consist principally in topical appliances for 
reducing inflammatory action. 

The severest sufferings from bunions or corns are not per¬ 
manently relieved by unguents, emollient lotions, or paring 
away hardened cuticle. The remedy which is a cure, is simply 
wearing shoes that do not press on the tender spot. 

Wearing sandals for a month, which have no vamps, would 
allow nature to reestablish order where it has been disturbed 
by tight shoes. 

Tempoeart Belief. 

A sensible way of seeking temporay relief practised by 
laborers, is to cut a piece out of the shoes or boot, over the 
bunion. A hole thus made, affords immediate relief from 
agonizing pain. 

No outlay for advertised specifics need be expended. Free¬ 
dom to the oppressed part is all that is required.- 

When ladies reach their dressing-rooms from a promenade, 
distressed by their beautifully-fitting boots, their first act is to 
exchange them for soft slippers—the older the better. Other¬ 
wise they sit in their stockings, shoeless, till the anguish 
brought on by exercise in their tormentors has somewhat 
subsided. 


Corns. 

Corns speak in forcible language, which makes those who 
have them realize that no half-way measures are successful in 
their treatment. 

They actually spring into existence to defend the spot 

where they appear, from impending injury; and as faithful 

19 


290 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


sentinels, cry out at every movement which menaces the 
locality under their charge. 

Barefooted people have no such afflictions, nor those who 
wear cast-off shoes a size or two larger than their feet. Corns 
never appear unless the toes are wedged too closely. Being 
f inched expresses the condition which develops those painful 
prominences. 

If the vamp of a shoe is too low, the pressure interferes 
with a free circulation on the upper surface of the toes. Inflam¬ 
mation follows, the cuticle begins to thicken and rise above the 
ordinary level. 

On its underside or base, a corn has a conical shape—the 
point, like a thorn, on the slighte*st pressurej irritates the in¬ 
flamed periosteum below, and thus they act as messengers, 
announcing through the nerve filaments something wrong is 
transpiring, which is thus telegraphed to the brain; which, if 
a sensible one, will remove the tormenting pressure. 

In these pedal miseries, volutarily induced, a demand is 
made for a distinct profession to meet the contingency. Thus 
chiropodists are in the enjoyment of lucrative incomes. Corn- 
Vloctors have a thriving business in cities. 

Corn-martyrs do not deserve much commiseration, because 
they might have permanent relief by simply discarding tight 
shoes. 

Softening corns in tepid water, and afterwards paring them 
down, is only temporary relief, with a moral certainty of a 
speedy uprising again to the former elevation. The more 
prominent, the worse it seems to dig down into the flesh below. 

Corn doctors are not infallible. They promise well, but 
their operations must be frequently repeated. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


291 


Chilblains. 

Chilblains—those burning red patches which are excessively 
irritable on the heel, the sides of the feet, and occasionally on 
the sole—are produced quite as often by pressure and the non¬ 
escapement of perspirable emanations from the feet as from 
snow-water. 

Glazed leather and India rubber shoes and boots prevent the 
evaporation of perspiration from the feet, and hence they become 
extremely tender and liable to chilblains. India rubber con¬ 
stricts the toes, by tightening the bones and deranging their 
original relations. 

Such shoes should only be worn for a very short period— 
for walking through muddy streets—and removed on entering 
the house. Aside from the injury inflicted on the feet^by 
wearing them as some do, indiscreetly, days in succession, if 
the perspiration is pent up and not allowed to escape, the gene¬ 
ral health has been found to be* disturbed from that cause. 
Habitually worn, India rubbers distort the feet and leave them 
extremely tender. 

Thin shoes, too thin and light to resist moisture from with- 
’ out, particularly when there is snow on the ground, invite chil¬ 
blains. Ladies should wear shoes as thick and strong as those 
worn by men, if they are similarly exposed in the open air. 
Thick soles ought not to be forgotten. Ordinarily, they are 
not much thicker than paper, which explains a liability to those 
erysipelic attacks which commence suddenly and run a rapid 
course. 

Erysipelas of the Feet. 

Solutions of common salt, sulphate of zinc, decoctions of 
rose leaves or camomile flowers, are each and all of them sooth- 


292 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


ing, and not nnfreqnently effectual in dispersing the malady, if 
applied seasonably. 

Effects of Continued Compkession. 

There is scarcely any difficulty or derangement of the toes 
or feet that does not originate in violence from compression. 
Cotton-hatting, stuffed between the stocking and the corn or 
bunion, so as to raise the shoe above the corn, is an admirable 
way of obtaining immediate relief, when so circumstanced that 
no other more permanent treatment can be had. 

High Heels. 

Sprains, abrasions of the skin, etc., which are inconveni¬ 
ences, may frequently be traced to immensely high heels which 
ladies cannot dispense with, who make pretensions- to fashion¬ 
able equipment. 

With these warning words, if they still persist in making 
themselves uncomfortable even to intense suffering, they must 
be given over as incorrigible and willing dupes to the arbitrary 
demands of fashion which imposes hardships upon them greater 
than they ought to bear. 

It will be an amusing exhibition for a distant generation to 
have pictorially illustrated the phases of female fashions of 
this generation. The cut of garments, high heels, enormous 
hip and other paddings, pyramids of artificial hair piled on in 
such profusion as to be entirely out of all proportion to the rest 
of the body, with other ridiculous contrivances that must 
embarrass their freedom of motion—could not fail of being con¬ 
templated then as now, with mirthful astonishment. 



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THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


29i 


A Geaceful Step. 

A steady, dignified step, is hardly possible on high heels. 
Mounted thus, the weight is thrown forward, the shoe becom¬ 
ing an inclined plane, which gives a peculiar stoop that took the 
name of the Grecian bend when first introduced. It is like 
standing on the roof of* a building, cobbled up on high heels, 
being continually obliged to resist a tendency to pitch forward. 

High heels bring immediate trouble to the toes, by wedg¬ 
ing them into the extreme point of the shoe. 

Absurdities in dress die out for a while and then revive 
again, as though humanity could not be satisfied without, being 
slightly miserable. Just at this particular juncture, high heels 
are very high, with a base of support not much broader than a 
linger-nail. Shop window specimens exhibit the sacrifices 
women make to appear taller than Dame Nature ordained them. 
Fashion or death is the ruling spirit, and some have both. 

Female pedestrians step out of their high-heeled boots as 
quickly as possible on a return from a promenade. Heels, even 
half an inch high, cannot be worn without bringing an extra 
strain upon some of the muscles of the leg, particularly on the 
long flexors of the foot. 

Kidicule heelless shoes of Orientals as we may, they are 
philosophically right, and we are wrong. They are at ease with 
them, while our ladies are only comfortable when they are off. 

How much rheumatism, neuralgia, and cramps are due to 
high heels, may be ascertained by the study of works on morbid 
anatomy.. 

Partial Adaptation to Circumstances. 

By persistence in wrong-doing, that is, voluntarily making 
one’s self uncomfortable, the muscles of the foot and leg after 


294 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


awhile. adjust themselves partially to the new condition, but 
always at the expense of a loss of tone, and of the full exercise 
of their normal power. Whenever liberated, they contract back 
to their former state, which is a permanent relief, if not again 
compelled to act unnaturally. 

Men are no wiser than women in regard to the high-heel 
mania. Their boots are elevated, quite too much at the heel; 
consequently, they are familiar with corns and bunions, enlarged 
toe-nails, unsymmetrical feet, and bulging out of the leather 
over those irregularities, created by forcing the foot forward 
into a narrow extremity of space. 

We were all born with good pedal extremities, precisely 
adapted to the plane of the earth, and they would serve us ad¬ 
mirably, free from excrescences, incurvated nails, riding toes, 
callosities, protruding joints, and other annoyances, to extreme 
old age, if tliey were never put into unyielding leather prisons, 
too small to receive them., 

Antique Foot. 

A small foot maybe exceedingly beautiful in the estimation 
of those who have very large ones. If narrow, and the toes are 
in close contact, the foot is not a true type of the best form. 
Sculpture represents the toes spread, so that there is space 
between them, thus, giving them a firmer hold and a broader 
base of support. 

Camels are bom with callosities over several joints on which 
they rest while being laden or unladen. Man has a thick, com¬ 
pact protecting cuticle in the sole of the foot, beautifully 
cushioned for protecting nerves, blood-vessels, and tendons 
under an archway of small bones, between the heel and base of 
the toes. The arch is kept in place by inelastic ligaments, run- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


295 


ning from point to point, so remarkable in tbe disposition made 
of them, as to show, beyond tbe cavil of ingenious doubters, that 
intelligence was exercised in tbeir distribution, to give perfec¬ 
tion to tbe foot. Without just tbat particular arrangement, tbe 
weight of tbe body would crush tbe structure into confusion, 
and utterly destroy tbe mechanism. 

As we did not contrive our own bodies, we must admit of 
tbe existence of a Supreme Intelligence tbat did produce such 
marvellous mechanism. 

Artists find tbe foot a profound study, simply looking to its 
exterior; while anatomists are rapt in wonder and admiration 
at revelations in its interior. 

Both elementary anatomy and physiology should be taught 
in female schools and seminaries, that the pupils might have 
early insight into their own complicated organization. It would 
make-them more careful of themselves, and lead to the observ¬ 
ance of those laws, the violation of which, through ignorance, 
whether relating to their stomachs, their brains, their eyes, or 
their feet, embitters life, and destroys them before they have 
had as much of life as they would have had under a more per¬ 
fect system of education. 

- A medical gentleman of Boston excited considerable derision 
some years ago, because his common-sense was superior to 
fashionable folly. One of his so-called foolish whims was, in 
having shoes for his children made exactly to conform to their 
outline, marked round on a piece of leather with a pencil. 
Their shoes had a comical appearance, to be sure, contrasted 
with modern manufacture, but an object of importance was at¬ 
tained, viz., good, sound feet. 

Let those laugh who win. 


CHAPTEE XXIIL 
Their Physical Necessities. 

Is life essentially prolonged or shortened by the qnabty of 
onr food 'i 

Maoy physicians would answ^er no, if they gave the subject 
much thought. Each and all entertain theories which naturally 
have an origin in deliberations on the phases of disease, and the 
influence of diet. 

Most persons have a vague notion in regard to themselves, in 
reference to whaf may or may not be suitable for the stomach. 

Even those of eminent physiological attainments are often 
influenced by whims, rather than by facts, in their theories of 
life. Evidence is extant of the highest import, incontestably 
proving that it is of very little importance, or rather of no con¬ 
sequence, what kind of food we subsist upon. Longevity 
depends on a peculiar vital endowment, transmitted from 
parents to children. Neither food nor climate perceptibly 
modifles the life period, aside from outbreaks of pestilence and 
epidemics. 

A beggar in the street lives as long as one who satis- 
fles every craving of his nature. Wise, considerate, and 
learned men who believe themselves masters of hygienic laws, 

. cannot arrest the progress of what is denominated self-limited 
disease. Nor is it easier to arrest the tendency to long life, 
when the food has been wholesome, without violence. 

There must be speciflc lawsr regulating the life period of all 
animals and plants. With the aid of science, it is possible to 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


29T 


acquire a better knowledge of those laws of limitation. It is 
within the sphere of possibility to determine the precise day of 
death. 

Female Medical Examiners. 

This subject has been studied with earnest solicitude by life 
insurance managers, but, unfortunately, the inquiry has too fre¬ 
quently been confided by those institutions to medical donkies, 
instead of men of brain. It is very mortifying that medical 
examiners appointed for the express purpose of discovering the 
physical prospects of life in applicants for policies, are not often 
distinguished for ability, educational acquirements, or profes¬ 
sional standing. A man of knowledge, fitting him to counsel 
executive officers in granting the benefits of life insurance, has 
not much chance of appointment, unless he is a relative of some 
controlling spirit of the institution. Were researches made into 
the organization of many companies, it would surprise the 
public to learn they are family affairs, largely owned and 
managed for the support of a president, secretary, cashier, and 
other officers, including fathers-in-law, brothers-in-law, cousins, 
sons, and nephews, and occasionally doctors, all held together by 
a tether of consanguinity. 

Women should be the medical examiners of women for life- 
policies. Eeasons might be given for this assertion, of import¬ 
ance to companies. A female medical examiner should be 
attached to the office permanently, even if she were not a rela¬ 
tive to the ruling elder. 

Diminution of Vital Force. 

When we have reached a period at which there is a full 

development of our powers and faculties, the scale is turned, 
19* 


298 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


and a diminution of life-force is gradually perceptible. It is 
precisely so with animals, in whatever climate they are located. 
There is less activity in the circulation, a gradual relaxation of 
the tissues, and an increasing obtuseness in the nerves of special 
sense. A reluctance to engaging in pursuits that formerly were 
sources of pleasure, is another observable circumstance, indicat¬ 
ing a culmination and downward tendency of the body and 
mind. 

Though there may be a long lingering old age, the day of 
doom at last arrives. Kude winds rend a limb here and there, 
and by and by a gale in its fury levels the giant oak with the 
ground from whence it came. As it is with stately trees of the 
forest, so it is with monsters of the deep. A whale may roam 
in the depths of the ocean for centuries, able to withstand 
terrific assaults of formidable enemies, but the great heart that 
drove a column of blood one hundred feet at each pulsation, 
finally beats for the last time, at the end of a thousand years, 
—for aught we know to the contrary—in obedience to a law 
of limitation. 

Though we understand many of the once-called mysteries of 
IS’ature, yet we cannot ward ofi a blow that will terminate 
existence, when most solicitous to live. Man, of ’ all created 
beings, has a conscious knowledge of what must transpire in re¬ 
gard to the close of life, without being able to avert it. 

Sanitary Precautions. 

Moses gave the first code of sanitary regulations ever pro¬ 
mulgated, which are substantially in force at the present day in 
most Christian countries. Wherever they are strictly observed 
in respect to animal food, the people enjoy the best health. 

Were a catalogue given of the kinds of food on which 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


299 


humanitj should subsist, it would not be satisfactory, simply 
because articles that would be excluded as dangerous in one 
country, might be valued as very superior in another. 

But man being omnivorous, he can be sustained on anything 
which yields nutrition to graminivorous or carnivorous animals. 
In Arctic regions, the demand of the stomach is for fat meats 
and animal oils.. On approaching the Tropics, both the quality 
and quantity is constantly varying, the craving being for a mix¬ 
ture of vegetable with animal food—the appetite for the first 
rather predominating. 

At the Equator, fruits, grains, nuts, seeds, and roots are the 
principal food of the inhabitants ; but, according to travellers, 
a desire for animal aliment becomes so perfectly uncontrollable 
at times, as to lead to terribly revolting exhibitions of can¬ 
nibalism. 

Dis^ustinff feastino^s on human desh are almost certain to 

o o o 

take place every few months in the gloomy interior of that part 
of Africa which is rarely penetrated by white men,—the home 
of gorillas,—if meats cannot be procured from other sources. 

A demand for elements, nowhere else found buf in animal 
food, partially explains those barbarous acts of feeding on a fel¬ 
low-being, which characterize the rudest condition of human 
society. 

There really is no positive standard, that is, a catalogue of 
articles which are proper, and exclusively so, for nourishing the 
body. 

Were a butcher to sell horse meat in our cities, he would, 
unquestionably, be prosecuted for vending an unwholesome 
article, unfit and unsuitable for human food. A feeling of in¬ 
tense exasperation would probably agitate the community 
where such an outrage had been perpetrated. Yet, in Paris, 
horse-beef is a recognized market production, and well esteemed 


300 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


as nutritious and proper. There were eight markets in which 
it was extensively sold before the late revolution. 

Let a prosecution be commenced almost anywhere in the 
United States, against some one who had the hardihood to sell 
horse-meat, and, ten chances to one, there would be an array of 
medical experts to testify it was an infamous transaction, de- 
‘structive to individuals, as it would be to the public 
health. 

Man is omnivorous, and, because he is. so, amply qualified to 
range over the globe, regardless of circumstances which restrict 
most animals to particular localities in which their appropriate 
nourishment is provided. 

What would become of the inhabitants of J^apland, deprived 
of fish and seal,—no vegetables to be had there ? 

Necessity compels those at the Arctic Circle to feed on that 
which will best keep up the current of their vitality. Under 
another condition of climate, millions subsist on rice. But the 
intellectual calibre of both fall infinitely below those in temper¬ 
ate zones, who are sustained on a mixed diet of fiesh and 
vegetables. 

Our jaws are studded with four distinct kinds of teeth,—viz., 
incisors, or cutters, in front; canine, called eye-teeth, for tear¬ 
ing and holding firmly; single and double molars, exclusively 
for grinding. 

Carnivorous animals have no grinders, the graminivorous are 
without the canine, as they appear in dogs, lions, tigers, and the 
like. The motion of their jaws is up and down, cutting upon 
the principle of shears, with no sliding movement. Cattle, 
horses, camels, etc., grind their food into pulp before swallow¬ 
ing it. 

Man both cuts, rends, and grinds. In short, he performs all 
the acts in preparing food for the stomach, which the animals 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


301 


referred to perform singly. Thus, anatomically, is a proof 
found of his omnivorous nature. 

Passing from the further consideration of the omnivorous 
character of man, to qualify him for a general superintendence 
of the earth’s surface, it may be fearlessly asserted that those 
who confine themselves exclusively to a vegetable diet, will 
never be distinguished for their intellectual powers. 

A fiourish of trumpets and tempestuous declamations before 
weak-minded audiences of converts to any ism which happens 
to be promulgated by adventurers for notoriety, occasionally 
secure a disciple who is captivated with the announcement that 
we were designed to subsist exclusively on vegetables. 

Their physical and mental deterioration begins when they 
adopt the system. A temporary brilliancy, and vaunted clear¬ 
ness of perception is imagined to result from an abandonment 
of animal food for baked apples, boiled turnips, and roasted 
potatoes. 

Papsodies from a change of habits are symptoms of ap¬ 
proaching lunacy. 

Women require a mixed diet. They should take, without 
reserve, whatever belongs to the family regimen. This is not 
to be construed into an arbitrary system of dietetics, from which 
no deviations are allowable. Whatever is relished and digest¬ 
ible, is proper. 

Meats have been human food in all ages, and they will con¬ 
tinue to be served while humanity remains the same. 

If men were originally monkeys, they probably subsisted as 
monkeys now do, on nuts and farinaceous products. When 
men confine themselves exclusively to vegetable food, they will 
dwindle down again to the level of their putative ancestors. 

A mixed food of animal and vegetable is a law of necessity 
in temperate zones. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


Mikor Sources of Aj^n'Otance. 

Pride—Mutilations without Destroying the Intellect—Ligation of Limbs by 
Elastics—Freckles—Epidermis—Moth Patches—Nostrums—Grass Food 
—Danger of Topical Applications—Red Noses—Astringent Lotions— 
Smelling Bottles—Stimulants—Appearing to Advantage. 

A NATURAL instinct urges us to appear to the best advan¬ 
tage before others. That leads to placidity of deportment, 
propriety of conduct, and the practice of courtesies which are 
agreeable, if not essential, to a good understanding with those 
with whom we are associated. 

It would be hardly short of insanity to seek opportunities 
for disgusting acquaintances by habits offensive to decency or 
the common usages of well-regulated society, 

Tliis inborn disposition impels us to efforts for improve¬ 
ment, and to conceal defects, real or imaginary, that might 
diminish our attractive qualities. External appearances have 
more influence with the majority of mankind than intellectual 
attainments or moral excellences of character. 

When pride is in excess, it eventuates in ridiculous exhibi¬ 
tions that provoke comment and biting remarks. With a 
desire to improve personal appearance, the remedy is not un- 
frequently worse than the defect. Thus wigs, cheek-plumpers 
to puff out hollow mouth-walls, artificial eyebrows, gum- 
elastic bosoms, wooden calves to spindle-shanks, and some 
other devices for appearing developed to a commendable 
standard of excellence, cannot escape comment when the 
deception has been discovered. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


303 


Mutilations Possible. 

There is a story illustrative of the pruning a living human 
body may pass through, without destroying life or apparently 
impairing the mind. 

When Miss Jones became Mrs! Brown, the happy husband 
was nearly frightened out of his senses by the extraordinary 
metamorphoses through which she passed. He had gazed with 
pride on Mrs. Brown’s fine proportions. 

Knowing her to be a woman of discretion, whose forty 
years of singleness had afforded ample opportunity for quali¬ 
fying the charming creature for superintending the genteel 
establishment to which she had been matrimonially introduced, 
Mr. Brown congratulated himself on the prospects of his 
domestic future. 

Betiring, Mrs. Brown first removed a splendid head of hair. 
Kext, on taking off a pair of gold-bowed spectacles, out came 
one eye. Laying both on a table, she then deliberately with¬ 
drew a double set of milk-white teeth. ^Progressing, a full 
panting bosom was unbuckled. Taking a position before a 
mirror, one side of her porcelain nose came off. Sitting down, 
a wooden leg was unscrewed, and then the left arm jlist below 
the elbow! 

Such are among the mutilations possible, without in the 
slightest appreciable manner interfering with mental oper¬ 
ations. 

All artificial appendages which improve the corporeal pro¬ 
portions, while contributing to the comfort and sometimes to 
the necessities. of the individual, are allowable and should be 
encouraged. It is high art to so improve and conceal defects 
which are unpleasant objects to others. 

Dentistry has largely contributed to the restoration of im- 


304 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


paired faces, and essentially benefited millions whose digestion 
was defective from the loss of teeth. 


What has been Neglected. 

Elastics for keeping sleeves and stockings in place have 
escaped observation. It is time they received attention from 
physiological reformers who devote themselves to teaching the 
way of long life by the avoidance of popular abuses, self- 
imposed and, therefore, the more difficult to remove. 

Those girders obstruct a return of blood from the ex¬ 
tremities, through superficial veins, and therefore should be 
abandoned. 

A reason why some ladies have very small, bony limbs, is 
because they have not blood enough circulating in them. 

Elastics below the knee block the cutaneous veins; and 
those articles under the name of sleeve-bands worn on the 
arms, obstruct the currents in both arteries and veins, as they 
press them against the bone. 

Garters do not produce much pressure on the arteries, as 
they are deep-seated and protected from compression by their 
favorable location. 

Hose should be kept up by elastic straps, a few inches in 
length, extending from a button on the drawers to another at 
the top of the stocking on each limb. That simple contrivance 
completely relieves the vessels. If the circulation is unim¬ 
peded, the limbs will develop under appropriate exercise. 

Ereckles. 

Freckles are regarded as afflictions. Persons of a light, 
florid complexion, especially those having redish, or entirely red 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


305 


hair, more generally than others, are apt to be marred witli 
dingy discolorations of the skin. 

Dark hair, dark eyes, and dark complexions are usually 
exempt from such anti-beauty spots. 

Freckles cluster under the lower eyelids, by the sides of the 
nose, back of the. hands, on the upper part of the neck, or, 
indeed, wherever there is an habitual exposure to sunlight in 
a particularly warm season. 

Washes, lotions, teas, etc., without number, are everywhere 
on sale, represented as efficient in the removal of such defects. 
But they are utterly useless, doing damage rather than reliev¬ 
ing the skin from offensive dingy discolorations, freckles, or 
yellow irregular patches. 

Exclusion from solar light is a precaution, in the brightest 
part of the day. A veil is unquestionably a partial defence 
against intense rays of a brilliant sun, which corrugate the skin 
where the coloring pigment under it is thin or scantily 
secreted. • 

The epidermis, or first skin, is both thickened and cor¬ 
rugated at intervals of a few lines, by exposure to the sun’s 
rays in many persons. Those of a nervous, sanguine tempera¬ 
ment, and of a light complexion, are most susceptible to 
freckling infiiiences. 

It is consolatory to believe in the theory that freckles are 
protecting shields to parts immediately under them, particu¬ 
larly when the attempt to remove them is unsuccessful. 

That freckles prevent the passage of some of the prismatic 
rays from reaching something that ought not to be impinged 
upon by them, is rather an assumption, than susceptible of 
proof. 

Whether pores, or twigs of cutaneous nerves, are protected! 

from injuries that might ensue, were it not for thickened places 

02 


306 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


in the outer tissue, requires more and closer observation than 
the subject has hitherto received. 

Freckles are both mechanical and chemical barriers to 
properties in sunlight that would inflict an injury, if not 
intercepted. Such is the imagined origin of them with those 
who have more imagination than facts to build upon. 

Possibly, extreme minute capillary vessels are protected in 
their labors by being covered by a thicker scale—for such is a 
freckle. Where there is one, it is a darker, thicker spot than 
the space between any two of them. 

Moth Spots. 

Moth-patches, as they are called, being irregularly deflned 
discolorations of a yellowish hue, commonly appear about the 
chin, the base of the ears, on the forehead, and, indeed, just 
where tliey are conspicuously in sight: oftenest on the faces 
of ladies of a lax habit. ISTursing women, and those who pass 
mucli*of their time'in poorly ventilated apartments, are most 
predisposed to such unwelcome appearances. 

^To calculation can be made respecting their duration. 
Young mothers are sometimes suddenly surprised by those 
yellow markings. Ladies, too, in middle life, without any 
assignable cause, are also the occasional subjects of moth- 
spots. 

Quacks and nostrum-venders hold out encouragement for 
their removal by applications of secret compositions. But 
there is no utility in their farragos. 

Kew Application of Steam. 

A process has been successfully practised of late for the 
removal of those disagreeable discolorations, which is unobjec- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 307 

tionable, and far better than dosing with internal medicine that 
can liave no efficacy whatever. 

The place is covered by a cup, from the bottom of which 
extends an elastic tube communicating with a vessel generating 
steam. The hot vapor is thus applied at a bearable tempera¬ 
ture, to thoroughly soften the skin to a point that it may easily 
be rubbed ofi* by the finger on removing the cup. 

That parboiling process also softens the pigment, which 
also slides ofiT from the cutis vera, or true skin. 

A return of the yellowdsh coloring matter may gradually 
reappear. Application of the steam-vapor a few times, at the 
same time circulating freely in open air, rarely fails of 
accomplishing the object. 

On peeling off the mothy skin, cover the denuded surface 
with gold-beater’s membrane or thin court-plaster, in order to 
exclude the air for a few days. 

Avoidance of Causes. 

Gross food, such as too frequent meat-eating,-pepper, vine¬ 
gar, or irregularities in diet, are thought to contribute to 
moth-spot development. 

Pimples, elevated purple areolar discs, minute vegetations 
near the wings of the nose, clusters of black dots, and hard, 
gnarly moles on the face, cannot always be removed without 
excision. 

There is absolute danger from the topical application of so 
many falsely-named medicinal remedies; the compositions, 
when known, being invariably condemned by physicians. It 
is never safe to tamper with drugs of any kind ; neither pills, 
powders, nor fluids, however prominently recommended, with¬ 
out approval of a medical adviser. 


308 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


In taking preparations, the ingredients of \vliicli are 
unknown to any but those interested in the profits, difficulties 
are produced, not unfi*equentlj far more serious than the 
minor ailment for which they were given. 

A Ked Nose. 

A red nose on a lady’s face is an extreme mortification. ■ 
Sometimes an intense shining redness remains a fixture for 
months in succession, unaffected either by external or internal 
medications. An engorgement of cutaneous blood-vessels on 
the cheeks or nose resists discutient applications far more obsti¬ 
nately than inflammations on other parts of the body. 

Sometimes the tip of the nose is of a shining tumid redness. 
The vessels of the skin are in a permanent state of inflammation. 
Cooling lotions rather aggravate than ameliorate the tumefac¬ 
tion, which is opposed to the theory that excessive local heat 
can be reduced by cold applications. 

Lead water also aggravates the condition ; and worse still, 
if persisted in too long, results in a loss of sensibility at the tip, 
by producing a paralysis of the cutaneous nerves distributed 
tliere. 

For a red nose, mild treatment is safer and more successful 
than harsh measures. If air and light are excluded, very easily 
accomplished by a covering properly fitted through the night, 
and much of the time through the day, considerable relief may 
be anticipated. 

But the best method to pursue is, to apply soft, emollient 
applications, mildly warm. Fine Indian-meal, in the form of a 
poultice, mixed in alum-water, should be worn through the 
night. Follow up the practice without intermission, for weeks^ 
It is best .not to have the mixture very astringent at first. The 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


309 


astririgency may be gradually increased by a solution of more 
alum. 

The skin becomes gradually softened, the enlarged vessels 
diminish, and, as the inflammation subsides, the redness disap¬ 
pears. 

"When the poultice is removed on rising in the morning, 
favor the partially-parboiled surface with a soft piece of oil¬ 
cloth, pierced with orifices for seeing, breathing, and using the 
mouth. 

Avoid smelling-bottles, pungent odors, snulf, and all other 
irritants of the nasal cavities, when a tendency to an engorge¬ 
ment about the wings or the nose itself exists. 

A caution in regard to liquors may be unnecessary to 
ladies ; however, it is certain that any extra excitement which 
drives the blood rapidly would be an aggravation of infiamed 
patches on the face. 

Ked-nosed smokers must abandon their idol, if they have a 
desire to recover their once good appearance. A volatilization 
of the essential oil, or whatever property is diffused in the smoke 
from a cigar or pipe, seems to add fuel to the infiammation. 

Women being less prone to the use of stimulants than men, 
and less exposed to various demoralizing infiuences from pro 
fane and vulgar associations, escape many ills which are incident 
to weak and thoughtless men. 

Women are occasionally seen with red noses, and morbidly 
flushed cheeks, who are egregiously imposed upon in their haste 
for relief. They are duped into purchasing vaunted specific re¬ 
medies that have not the least medicinal virtue. 

If ladies have more credulity than men, happily, they have 
fewer sins. 

Many precious lives are sacrificed on the altar of female 
vanity, in the earnest pursuit of phantoms. 


310 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Every woman exerts herself to appear to the best advantage. 
That prompts them to appear neat and tidy in their persons, 
and if they have blemishes, real or imaginary, .they strive to 
remedy the defect as speedily as possible. 

That is why they are patrons of all sorts of advertised nos¬ 
trums which promise more than can be per;tormed. When 
all women are dead, there will-be no more sale for patent 
medicines. * 


CHAPTER XXV. 


Their Peculiar Organization. 

To point out all the anatomical differences of the sexes, is 
not contemplated. No subject would be more difficult to 
popularize, and, were it accomplished, there would still be 
problems unsatisfactorily managed to meet the theoretical 
views of those who are always ready with objections, even when 
nature bears witness to the statements and deductions of 
medical philosophers. 

From childhood to age, there is a marked difference between 
men and women in their physical structure and appearance. 
Moral qualities are laid aside in this examination. 

There is a delicacy in the very bones of a female, that con¬ 
trasts singularly with the strong, hard, rough skeleton of the 
male. But in some of the carpentry of the osseous system, it 
is obvious that intelligent reference is manifested in the varia¬ 
tions recognized by anatomists to specific purj)oses which do 
not exist iu the male. 

With the same number of bones, arranged in the same 
order, and fulfilling the same offices, and moved by precisely 
similar muscles, influenced by nerves exactly like those in man, 
yet a woman is not a man. She is of mankind, and yet she is 
by herself. 

Though of a finer texture, and operated upon by subtle 
influences, regulated by a law of periodicity past finding out, 
she is really no more complex than a strong, athletic barbarian 
in her physical economy. 


312 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


A woman is not a perfect being by herself, neither is a man. 
The two constitute one, and that is a relation contemplated 
from the beginning by the Power that fashioned them. From 
birth up to a pubert age, some parts of their system have been 
so slowly developing, the physiologist is perplexed in his 
attempts to make plain an interesting chapter regarding the 
phenomena of development. 

While the brain enlarges in volume, the limbs lengthen, 
the muscles increase in bulk and strength, essential organs in 
the economy of animal life remain quiescent for years. Per¬ 
haps it is better to say a]p 2 )arenthj at rest —performing no office 
for a long while. Tliat apparent quiescence is undoubtedly a 
period of extraordinary changes, with reference to a revolution 
which changes the child to a woman. 

Precisely so are the conditions of boys through years of 
adolescence. At thirteen or fourteen, in most countries, a 
change of voice and the appearance of a beard indicate a sudden 
advance made from an imperfect to a perfectly organized man. 

An early matmity characterizes animals generally. In¬ 
sects have an exceedingly rapid series of evolutions. To be 
l)orn and become the parents of a numerous offspring in a 
single day, and then give way to a coming generation, are 
extraordinary circumstances. Those living longest are the 
slowest in being physically perfected. 

Poets have exhausted their magazines of imagery in their 
meditations on the helplessness of infancy. Put the compen¬ 
sation for those years of incapacity of body and mind for any 
of the responsibilities of life, is found in the longevity of the 
race. The average of existence far surpasses the life lease of 
the general animal kingdom. 

This subject will have special consideration in the chapter 
on longevity. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN 


313 


Wliether the moon exerts any more influence on the adult 
female than on the adult man, is left open for the discussion of 
professors in their ofiicial intercourse with their pupils. Were 
some learned pundit to assert the planet Mars, rather than 
the cold moon, the controlling power, who is able to con¬ 
fute it? 

There are peculiarities of structure and functions of our¬ 
selves, which are divine mysteries. ^Mature eludes our best 
concerted efforts for watching processes in her laboratories. 
Ever vigilant and uncommunicative, we are still profoundly 
ignorant of what we most desire to know. 

AVe know how life terminates, but who knows how it 
begins ? 


20* 


CHAPTER XXVL 


Their Maladies. 

A Repetition of Facts and Opinions in preceding Chapters—Childhood—Trans¬ 
plantation of Men and Women—Too much Comfort—Diseased Lungs— 
The Chest—A Stitch in the side—Incidental Infelicities—Temperature— 
Family Failures—Dosing too much. 

Refinements are accompanied by a train of discomforts, 
particularly severe upon women. 

Unfortunately, an impression prevails just where it ought 
not to be entertained, that their organization is so delicate they 
cannot have exposure to air, exercise, labor, or play, such as men 
are exposed to without detriment to their health. 

As already explained, their anatomical structure is no more 
complex than that of males. There is a delicacy and a finer 
finish, if that expression is allowable, but otherwise there is 
nothing in the form or development of the female body which 
indicates its unfitness to resist atmospheric changes or any in¬ 
fluences from without, which the physical constitution of the 
other sex can successfully withstand with impunity. 

Hardships are met with in all conditions of life. Pleasures 
and pains are about equally divided. Finally, there is no special 
reason why women should not be as free from sickness or indis¬ 
position from ordinary causes, and endure as much and as long 
as men, all other things being equal. 

Hereditary infirmities, such as scrofula and pulmonary con¬ 
sumption, appertain to some families. Easy circumstances 
present no reliable modifying conditions that promise less suf¬ 
fering than is to be met with in abodes of poverty. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


315 


Childhood. 

Among the poor a deficiency of proper kinds of nourish¬ 
ment in childhood leads to physical conditions which are 
troublesome in adult years. Especially so in regard to female 
children. Restrained as they generally are from out-door exer¬ 
cise, allowed to boys, and restricted most unfortunately, more 
frequently than otherwise, to small, badly ventilated apartments, 
their domestic pursuits ordinarily being sewing, or of a kind 
that keeps them most of the day and all of the night in social 
imprisonment—they grow up with less firmness of bone and 
muscle than their brothers, since no one cares whether their 
faces are tanned by the sun, or their feet are wet by wading in 
gutters. 

Frequent exposure to wind and weather, without refer¬ 
ence to temperature or humidity, does very much toward build¬ 
ing up a hardy body. Being kept from such infiuences debili¬ 
tates, and those thus reared possess feeble powers of resistance. 
A boy braves the storm, while the girl wilts and fades away 
under circumstances of home discipline, that robust, stirring, 
boys could not endure. 

On reaching womanhood, a girl is not able to resist influences 
that destroy her, while young men contend with the same con¬ 
tingencies without being moved by them in respect to health. 

AYhen the teeth show defects as early as fourteen to sixteen 
—not unfrequently much sooner—it is pretty conclusive evidence 
of the premature death of those organs, resulting from an in- 
sufiicient supply of phosphate of lime. The bones are not 
usually so well grown nor so strong in young misses whose teeth 
exhibit a paucity of that element, necessary for the perfect 
development of the whole osseous structure. 

We have already shown that in agricultural regions, where 


316 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


cereal grains are easily and abundantly cultivated, the people 
are taller and their bones are both larger and stronger than the 
bones of those who live where crops are only sparingly raised. 

In Western wheat-growing districts the inhabitants are pro¬ 
verbial for white, beautifully-set, sound teeth. . When those 
materials, which once gave from forty to fifty bushels to an acre, 
have been exhausted by continuous culture, without returning 
to the soil an equivalent for what has been drawn from it, 
the product dwindles to fifteen or twenty bushels. Then de¬ 
fective teeth begin to appear in young persons. The third 
generation, on the same ground, deteriorate in stature. Short 
men and women, descendants of stalwart parents in the same 
locality, would have been as tall and as perfect as their grand¬ 
parents, had they been provided with the amount of phosphate 
of lime they received in their youth. 

With an increase of population, and diminished products in 
a once fertile grain-growing area, the result of long-continued 
tillage, the inhabitants begin to seek new homes. This is the 
commencement in this country of removals to new lands farther 
off, which are rich. An improvement in the physical aspect, 
and, certainly, in the height of children born in the new locality, 
is noticeable when they reach an adult age. 

In cities, a change of diet, even though they may have come 
from the pure atmosphere of the country, not unfrequently 
immensely benefits some persons by the removal. It is because 
their systems are provided with elements necessary for a com¬ 
plete development of their bodies, which their habitual food in 
the interior did not furnish. 

Change of location is often quite as favorable, in a physical 
point of view, as change of position, after sitting for hours on 
the same seat. That law of change, in relation to man and 
animals, is recognized in another form, in respect to a rotation 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


317 


of crops. It is a gross mistake to attempt raising on tlie same 
ground, perpetually, one kind of product. There must be 
alternations, which afibrd opportunity for I^ature to replace, in 
her own way, elements that are taken away, and then, after 
awhile, the grain that had exhausted fertility may succeed 
again. 


Rest. 

Ho people have ever managed a farming interest so philo¬ 
sophically as the Jews, while they observed the requirements of 
their great lawgiver. Every seventh year the land rested one 
year. It gave it time simply for garnering up a new store of 
salts for raising subsequent crops. 

In avenues of trade, handicraft, or in the exercise of profes¬ 
sions, competition calls into activity parts of the brain which, in 
rural life, were almost, if not quite, dormant. 

The transfer of some of their vitality from the muscles, as in 
holding a plow, or reaping a field, requiring no vigorous effort 
of mind, to the busy scenes and stirring enterprises of a great 
mercantile establishment, brings out intellectual force in country 
boys they were not conscious of possessing. 

By degrees their faculties are systematized; they grasp at 
great undertakings in commerce,- and when the brain has been 
educated to the new order of things, mental friction subsides, 
and slender boys become portly gentlemen, bold calculators, in¬ 
trepid contractors with government, bank directors, and far- 
seeing financiers. 


Transplantation of Men. 

Society is immensely advanced, as a city is, in being recruit¬ 
ed from the honest farmer’s one-story house. 


318 


THE WAYS OP WOMEN. 


A transplantation of men and women is as important for 
tlie progress of society as the removal of trees from their native 
soil to ornament public parks. 

Choice fruit-trees are invariably taken from a nursery while 
young, because they acclimate and accommodate themselves to 
the circumstances of a new locality. 

Old trees cannot be removed so readily. They die sooner 
than expected, l^othing is gained, either in quality or quantity, 
by running counter to those general laws which are recognized 
by the uneducated as violations, when plants and children are 
rudely handled, or old trees or old persons are expected to do as 
well in new conditions, as when left to themselves in places 
where their habits have been established, and their growth 
matured. 

Select boys and girls for removal to new spheres of life, as a 
shrubbery is chosen, for healthful appearance, vigor, and flexi¬ 
bility. They can then be handled with impunity, and*made to 
develop where they will be both useful, beautiful, and orna¬ 
mental. 

With females, a change of residence, from rural freedom in 
a country home to a city, is not so satisfactory in all respects, as 
with boys. Conventionalities in elevated circles keep them 
under too much restraint for a play of the vital machinery. 

When they come to town with impaired health, it is some-. 
times extremely advantageous to an enfeebled young lady to 
have the stimulus of a maritime residence; or in being trans¬ 
ported to an inland town, where they escape the humidity of 
easterly winds, or long, wet, cold springs, that were causes of 
indisposition in the locality whence they came. 

On being established in town, they find it customary, if not 
necessary, to adopt quite a new mode of life, which, in connec¬ 
tion with close dwellings, heated by furnaces, instead of an open 



FASHIONS ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 
From a painting by F. Kran*. 




















































































































































































































THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


819 


fireplace, with a cheerful glow of blazing wood, together with 
regulations and preparations for the breakfast-table in one dress, 
for a promenade in another, at the dinner-table in something 
else, and lastly, for the drawing-room, in still another change of 
costume; and all those, independently of very formidable and 
elaborate transformations for the opera, are direct sources of 
debility, and, certainly, of great fatigue. She must have a re¬ 
markable constitution to withstand so many and unrelaxing 
causes of indisposition. 

Too Much Comfort. 

Women break down under too much domestic comfort, 
sooner than under domestic hardships. Thus, people, whose 
days and nights are a series of excitements, high living, and 
irregular hours, scarcely ever number as many years as those 
who are obliged to contend with poverty and privations. It 
is among females in the latter condition that extreme longevity 
is found. 

Men fly about in open air, inflating their lungs with refresh¬ 
ing properties, while their beautiful wives and daughters, with 
pale faces and tallowy complexions, are lounging on sofas, com¬ 
plaining of ennui. How many of them fall like promising 
blossoms before the fruit is set, killed by kindness. Such is too 
much civilization. 

Travelling for health is nothing more nor less than ranging 
about for vitality, which all the rich can neither And nor pur¬ 
chase, while the poor have it forced upon them through broken 
panes and cracks in the walls. 

They are pitied because their lot is hard. They have no 
luxuries for their stomachs; no two thousand dollar shawl to 
protect their white shoulders; no velvet ottomans for their 
feet; no frescoed apartments to suflbcate in, nor down beds for 


320 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


sleeping away life in idleness. Bnt tliey have wliat money 
cannot procure or physicians furnish, viz., rosy cheeks, sound 
lungs, white teeth, a good appetite, and other requisites for - 
reaching three score and ten without converting their homes 
into a hospital. 

A consumptive diathesis is most commonly transmitted from 
the mother. Whether induced in them by exposures, hardships, 
or transmitted to them from ancestors, cannot always be ascer¬ 
tained. If there were no consumptive mothers, however, there 
would be fewer victims of that frightful malady. 


Diseased Lungs. 

Nature is always conservative. The effort is invariably to 
repair, restore impaired parts, and to strengthen where there is 
weakness. 

There is a contest between life and death in cases where the 
partitions between the air-cells of the lungs are ulcerated, and 
the function of respiration is, of course, imperfectly performed. 
Blood sent there does not obtain as much oxygen as the body 
requires. 

Ulcerations extend and pus accumulates till in advanced 
stages of the disease extensive abscesses are formed, and cavities 
are distended, with thick, adhesive, offensive fluid. Breathing 
becomes more impeded and death ensues. 

Usually only one lung is involved in the manner described. 
Were it within the province of surgery, as it probably will be 
at no very remote period, when there is more confidence in the 
resources of that great art and less timidity among operators, 
that half of the chest containing a disorganized lung will be 
opened for the extraction of the useless, diseased lobe. 

When air enters the pleural cavity, the lung collapses in- 


\ 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 321 

slantly. It would be relieved from inflation, and in that way 
set at rest. The sound lung on the other side, completely sepa¬ 
rated by a partition, and in its own pleural box, would sustain 
life unaided by its fellow. 

Teachers of surgery set forth in frightful array the fatal 
effects of an inflammation of the pleura,—the lining membrane 
of the thorax,—should air be admitted to it. 

Let them devise methods to prevent its access. ISTo domain 
of operative surgery is so miserably handled as that of the chest. 
No progress has been made there in a hundred years. 

There are thousands of medical men who remember the 
perpetual caution impressed upon them in their pupilage, not to 
wound the peritoneum. Even a puncture was to be avoided 
with sciTipulous care, because it was a serous tissue. 

On account of that bugbear of apprehended fatal inflamma¬ 
tion, peritonitis was managed with difficulty. Now, in the ex¬ 
traction of ovarian tumors—nowhere more skilfully performed 
than in the United States—but few out of many are lost, and 
yet incisions through that membrane are extensive in ovari- 
atomy. 

Many women have died of those enlargements in past times, 
who might have been saved, had there been more accurate 
knowledge of what course to pursue in treating the peritoneum. 

The late Dr. Mott remarked to a medical gentleman, while 
both were observing the progress of an operation involving 
parts he was cautioned in his youth to avoid, “ Why, they cut 
the peritoneum now-a-days as heedlessly as they would cut an 
old shoe.” 

The Chest. 

The lining membrane of the chest is also a serous one, per¬ 
forming an oflSce very similar to that which lines the abdominal 
21 


322 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


cavity—viz., pouring out a fluid for lubricating tbe organa 
within. 

"VYlien that fluid is in excess, the absorbents failing to take 
it away, the accumulation is a dropsy. To draw it off artifi¬ 
cially, an instrument called a trocar is resorted to. 

A puncture being made, tlie fluid is drawn off. The opera¬ 
tion is substantially the same in relieving the chest, but not so 
often performed, as the inflammation apprehended is considered 
more difficult to control. 

There is considerable unoccupied ground in the domain of 
surgery. The coming operator who has boldness enough—and 
it will be called daring—to cut into the chest, and take out 
diseased portions of a diseased lung, will secure great fame. 

The right and left lobes open into one common tube; but if 
the branch pipe on either side were closed, the supply of air 
would be inhaled as before into the lung whose tube was 
free. 

ISTot to enlarge further on this subject, deserving as it is of 
careful consideration, it .may be asserted that many persons at 
this present moment are in vigorous health, who have only one 
lung. 

Gun-shot wounds, bayonet, stiletto, and sabre-thrusts, have 
often punctured the thorax, and terrific violence to the lungs 
did not prove fatal. * 

A Stitch ih the Side. 

In severe pleurisy, adhesions are formed between the sur¬ 
face of the pleura costalis and the one covering the lung. 
As the lung thus tied begins to inflate, there is a sharp, painful 
sensation, called' stitch in the side, which prevents a full 
inspiration. 

When inflammation has subsided, the individual gradually 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


S2B 

begins to inhale a larger volume of air. The bridle which held 
the lung, so that it could not be inflated without pain, gradually 
elongates, and Anally normal breathing is reestablished. 

Females appear more prone to pleurisy, or aggra¬ 
vated inflammation of the lungs, than men. The manner 
of ligating the waist prevents the descent of the lungs with the 
fall of the diaphragm to where they ought to have gone in a 
full inspiration. 

Girding the body with stays diminishes the lower end of 
the thorax. Its capacity is unnaturally small. Long practice 
has fixed the ribs where they are permanently held. 

Such compression deranges the abdominal viscera. The 
lungs are forced higher up. Chafing, as they do, through a 
triangular membranous space at the root of the neck, the sharp 
horizontal edge of the first rib creates inflammation, and that 
degenerates into something worse. Matter forms, and cell 
after cell is laden with the accumulating pus. 

The mechanical eflTect of girding the waist has been 
explained. A full inflation of the lungs keeps gradually 
forcing the upper part upwardly, till ultimately a portion rises 
above the level of the first rib. 

This is the origin of many a case of consumption, developed 
by tampering with the body to make it take a form which 
is contemplated as an improvement. The penalty is a life 
of suffering to many, and premature death to a majority 
of all who have been made over in the barbarous manner so 
much admired by ladies. 

Youth and beauty are sacrificed to the demands of a per¬ 
verted taste. Thousands of brilliant young ladies have been 
carried to the grave, victims of stays, busks, and unyielding 
corsets, the real cause of their premature death not being 
suspected. 


324 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Incidental .J^felicities. 

There are indispositions of a temporary kind improperly 
considered as inevitable results of female organization. This 
not being a treatise on therapeutics, nor aspiring to the pro¬ 
vince of a physician, no details in regard to medicine-taking 
are attempted. 

If women reflected upon the mission devolving upon them 
with more earnestness, they could not fail to perceive that they 
have not been forced into existence to suffer, nor to die pre¬ 
maturely. Their organization has incorporated with it com¬ 
pensating powers of resistance. 

If women are the weaker sex, or in any respect inferior *to 
men, the cause of it is a fault of civilization. 

Direct causes of functional derangements, out of which grave 
difiiculties arise, are traceable to actual violations of sanitary 
laws. 

Too light clothing, improper food, imperfect nutrition, the 
wild waywardness of passion, the seductions of fashion, and the 
pride to look better than they fancy they appear, and striving 
to improve their form to correspond with an ideal model of 
exterior perfection,—are each and all of them dangerous, and, 
when carried too far, eventuate in some form of sickness. 

Why should not a woman be clothed as warmly as a man ? 
That question is not a new one. 


Temperature. 

A notion prevails, and perhaps not entirely without reason, 
that their ordinary temperature is higher than the vital heat of 
men under precisely the same circumstances. 

Admitting it were so, that they have less need of thick 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


325 


clothing, it fails to explain why they are ever dressed in such 
frail fabrics as are scarcely sufficient to resist a zephyr. Most 
of their garments are rapid conductors of caloric. 

Mothers cannot be ignorant of this fact, that the clothing 
of their girls is far lighter and less substantial than that of 
their boys. 

It has been heralded from Dan to Beersheba, in treatises ex¬ 
pressly written for the instruction of females, and by warning 
voices, that the present method of clothing young girls in this 
fitful climate is wrong. 

But it amounts to nothing. There is no improvement. An 
appalling percentage are doomed to die before they become 
responsible beings. 

More females than males, according to necrological re¬ 
ports, die annually of consumption. Were men subjected to 
the same stay-discipline from a tender age, their ribs distorted, 
and their lungs preternaturally operating in a place too small 
for the oxygenation of the blood, the bills of mortality would 
exhibit melancholy memorials of the death-rate of the self- 
sacrificed. 

Men die of consumption. When sporadic, and not heredi¬ 
tary, it may be traced to exposures that brought on severe 
bronchial inflammation, respiratory derangements, and their 
concomitants. 

With wide-spreading ribs at the base of the chest, they 
resist, successfully, influences which the female chest in its 
distortions cannot withstand. Therefore their hold of life is less 
precarious.. 

Consumption is only one of many diseases to which females 
are liable, that may be avoided. If, as physicians assert, de¬ 
rangements in the lungs, engorgements and congestions of the 
mucous membrane of the pelvic viscera, are due oftener than 


326 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


suspected to their insufficient garments, there is a remedy with¬ 
out resort to medicine. 

Women expose themselves with thin shoes, and insist they 
are thick enough. In their thin silks, and other delicate 
dresses, in going into the open air, they cannot resist the sudden 
blasts that chill them in passing from one temperature to 
another. 

A few of the many may have the moral courage to be com¬ 
fortable at the hazard of being represented as eccentric or 
opinionated, regardless of what people may say of their oddity 
in not killing themselves in the wake of fashion. 

NTot Clothed Suitably. 

Small girls in the house, the street, the school, and in their 
amusement, expose too much skin surface to the weather. 

Fancy growing boys, wearing summer coats without sleeves 
in winter, their necks bare and bosoms open to cold breezes, 
with a postage stamp on their caputs instead of a hat, racing 
at foot-ball in kid slippers,—and they would convey no inapt 
idea of the scanty clothing of female children generally in the 
Atlantic States. 

Bare arms, bare chests, light tight-fitting dresses, and, lastly, 
their shoes and gauze stockings, are their certain destruction. 

Girls should be as warmly clad and in as thick clothing as 
their hardy, red-cheeked brothers. 

Discussion is not invited. This statement is presented for 
the consideration of parents. Either allow girls to exhaust 
their superabundant vitality in unrestrained out-door rambles, 
barefooted and bonnetless, like vagrants, which would con¬ 
tribute to robustness and vigor; or dress them suitably for pro¬ 
tection against cold blasts that they meet in their pastimes 
from an overheated parlor to an open piazza. 


THE WAYS OP WOMEN. 


32T 


Immense numbers of young girls are always to be seen in 
attics barefooted, in clothing that outrages decency, whose 
cheeks glow with health. Their homes are cheerless; they 
lodge in rickety apartments where fresh air reaches their 
lungs through broken windows and unfastened doors. Their 
food being plain, coarse, and often cold, their digestion is not 
deranged by high-seasoned dishes, too strong coffee, or their 
nerves excited beyond a normal condition. 

While such children move our sympathy, and the demoral¬ 
izations to which they are exposed are deplored, they have 
■^vhat wealth cannot purchase,—health. The rich man’s daugh¬ 
ters pine with their feet on velvet carpets, and they repose on 
down-beds -when their eyes are closed in slumber. 

Poor girls are by no means wholly exempt from sickness. 
There are painful sacrifices of human life in the abodes of 
poverty. Yet decaying families are recruited from the ranks 
of those which oftener than otherwise are regarded wdth com 
tempt by the vulgar rich. 

This idea does not embrace the haunts of vice, but simply 
refers to the country where children generally inherit sound 
constitutions. Their capital in the future business of life for 
securing respectability, position, and independence, is made up 
more of honesty and energy of character than money in bank. 

Family Failukes. 

In cities, especially those active commercial centres where 
wealth becomes literally immense, families deteriorate rapidly, 
and virtually become extinct in about two hundred years, 
pampered and placed above a necessity for exertion. Such is 
the progress of decay in a country like this, where no laws of 
primogeniture secure posterity a foothold on a landed estate. 


328 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


If it is true tliat many noble families have been pei’petuated 
in Europe, as their own historians assert, by having plebeian 
blood incorporated with their own, it is not improbable that a 
farmer’s son, or a chambermaid engrafted upon a withering 
stock, will save many a name and many estates on this side of 
the Atlantic. 

The ills of women multiply with the progress of social re¬ 
finement. They are usually traceable to causes that might 
have been avoided. 'No revolutions for their special benefit 
are anticipated which call for an abandonment of customs or 
etiquette intimately interwoven with the present aspect of 
civilization. 

More courage would be required to stem the current of popu¬ 
lar prejudice among those who make up good society, in common 
parlance, than to subdue a rebellion against the government. 

Therefore they are doomed to suffer, in order to be con¬ 
sistent ; and they must die prematurely, because it would be 
unpardonable to live in defiance of the public sentiment in 
regard to what is deemed to be extremely respectable. • 


Dosing too much. 

There are special infirmities appertaining to women—techni¬ 
cally recognized as the better class—so common, and so many 
are affiicted, that a paragraph or two will be sufiicient to open 
their eyes to impositions practised upon them by unprincipled 
medical specialists. 

Both male and female pseudo-medical practitioners are 
equally guilty of fraud; and the only possible way of limiting 
their demoralizing manipulations, which generally aggravate 
conditions, is to expose their nefarious doings to the indignation 
of those whose confidence they wickedly abuse. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


329 


ITo one but a physician can estimate the extent and ravages 
that result from over-treatment of simple local difficulties, that 
would eventually correct themselves if left to the recuperative 
efforts of nature. 

Young women, quite as often as matrons, present anomalous 
pelvic complaints. Even a slight congestion is magnified into 
a bugbear, requiring very special attentions. As the patient re¬ 
lies on the report of the only one consulted in her case, the 
opportunity for keeping up an alarm is quite within the control 
of the person consulted. 

Since female practitioners have been recognized as being in 
an appropriate sphere, a woman very naturally gives them a pre¬ 
ference. That is proper and commendable, but there are female 
quacks. 

Because a seamstress can increase her income by announcing 
herself a physician, without the slightest preparation for the 
responsibilities of the profession, she should not be con¬ 
sulted before exhibiting some honorable evidence of her quali¬ 
fications. 

Yery respectable physicians, in most respects, unfortunately 
for the progress of medical intelligence, have their hobbies. 

For the last dozen years a mania for caustic applications for 
almost any engorgement, or slight infiammation of some mucous 
membranes accessible to the practitioner, has raged with the 
intensity of an epidemic. Thousands of women have submitted 
to a topical application with lunar caustic, who were injured 
excessively by it. 

Because too many, improperly cauterized, have kept the 
secret of -improper treatment to themselves, it is hoped this 
exposition of an imposition practised upon them, may lead to 
the correction of an outrageous kind of practice. ^ 

Let no woman in her senses submit to the nitrate-of-silver 
21 * 


330 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


treatment, without consulting*previously the most commanding 
medical authority to be had. 

Two-thirds of the self-styled female physicians, whose signs 
figure conspicuously in basement window^s, are quite as ignorant 
as self-reliant, and without a ray of pathological knowleclge. 

When there is cause for alarm, induced, perhaps, by fatigue, 
or from any other cause, let nature have an opportunity at 
restoration first. 

^bTutritious diet, warm baths, a mild course of tonics, wine^ 
new sights, new faces, and breathing another atmosphere, purer 
and less contaminated with street dust, coal, gas, or other im¬ 
purities, are superior as curative agencies, and infinitely more to 
be prized, than a farrago of medica,tions. 

Gross impositions are practised on the credulity of sensible 
w'omen, too, by unprincipled speculators in health. 

It is their misfortune often to require advice, which they 
should have from reliable sources, but it is extraordinary that 
persons of good understandings are as often duped as those of 
no intelligence. 

One of the reasons why medical gentlemen of reputation 
hesitate to give countenance to female practitioners is, because 
there are such impostors among them, unscrupulous cheats, 
deceiving their own sex whenever ^opportunity presents; and 
honest female practitioners have to suffer for their sins. 

Moral influences, appropriately directed, should close the 
gates against medical adventurers. If the people, particularly 
the female portion of the community, are taught as they should 
be, in the course of education, the fundamental principles of 
physiology, they would not be so frequently deceived in matters 
pertaining to their own healtli, and by ignoramuses, too, whose 
ignorance is concealed under the title of doctor. 

There are but few positively sound ’women in this country. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


331 


Many are unsound who might have been models of physical 
perfection. 

Causes which tend to disease, and, consequently, to an 
abridgment of life, have been sufficiently set forth, but 
with no hope of inducing one in a thousand to abandon 
their idols. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


Their Powers of Endurance. 

What Women can do—Under Pressure of Misfortunes—Distinj-^uish Them¬ 
selves in Science—Being Misplaced—What Offices they could Discharge 
—Out-door Employments—Capacity—Iceberg Philanthropists—Chil¬ 
dren of Indigent Parentage—Exposures to Varying Temperatures— 
Development of Strength. 

With a delicate organization, women certainly endure bodily 
sufferings with firmness and heroic resolution. 

They can do anything in art or science which the other sex 
accomplish. Certainly, they have the ability for mastering lan¬ 
guages, playing music, or carrying on nice mechanical opera¬ 
tions. In sculpture, painting, and many ornamental arts, they 
vastly excel. If they had fewer muscles, or fewer bones, or 
even more than a man, they could not conduct manipulations 
requiring, expert fingers and a well-formed brain. 

Annals of war furnish thrilling accounts of brilliant achieve¬ 
ments in arms, in which young women braved the hardship of a 
camp, with a fortitude that would have exalted the reputation 
of a veteran, without shrinking. They have often triumphantly 
gained a reputation for skill, bravery, and patriotism. 

Their capacity for horticultural and general agricultural 
pursuits, is widely acknowledged. In their poverty and de¬ 
pendence on manual labor for bread, their strength keeps pace 
with their necessities. Thus, in Europe, they till the soil, 
drive teams, saw wood in the streets, act as hostlers, and to 
{he disgrace of those communities in which their liard destiny 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


333 


compels tliem to do the work which belongs to stronger and 
naturally rougher hands. 

It dwarfs them, to be compelled to carry heavy burdens. 
Exposure to all weathers hardens and tans their complexion, 
while alternations of heat, cold, rains, and winds, bronze their 
skin. To be sweating and tugging in the laborious pursuits 
of a farm, is not their appropriate sphere. Still they do it, 
and adapt themselves to the hard fortune imposed upon them, 
without complaining more than the sisterhood whose destiny 
places them beyond the necessity of being industrious. 

They bear up under misfortune, indeed, under all hard- • 
ships, more cheerfully than men, without perilling their health 
or morals. Their instincts are always in the right direction. 

A mother in the extreme wretchedness of some forms of 
poverty, ignorant, and dependent, manifests as much maternal 
solicitude, affection, and unconquerable love for her children, 
as the wife of a peer. She submits with fortitude to surgical 
operations, and endures protracted pains more heroically than 
men, whose physical powers of resistance, apparently, are far 
superior. 

A citation from historical records to establish this proposi¬ 
tion would be needless, since it has become a proverb that a 
woman is acknowledged to bear away the palm. 

When circumstances require, women do as well as men as 
teachers, artists, or bookkeepers j and they are constitutionally 
more honest than those claiming to be lords over them. 
Having the same number of nerves, bones, and blood-vessels, 
why should they not do whatever men do in those economies 
which require brains and hands ? 

If they fall below the sterner sex in any sphere of action, 
it is because their education has been less complete. Give 
them equal advantages. 


334 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Immense numbers of men and women are unfortunately 
misplaced. Society, consequently, is a loser by not having 
them in positions where each would have contributed advan¬ 
tageously for the good of all. 

Women quite frequently find themselves mismated as well 
as misplaced. It is a mistake they often make, in supposing 
that pearls and diamonds are worth more than intelligence. 
Jewels have no weight in an intellectual balance. 

“ When unadorned, adorned the most,” is a trite expression, 
but it conveys a truth applicable to women of culture. They 
have an influence wherever they move, because there is a force 
in their deportment, and especially in their words, when pro¬ 
perly directed, commanding both respect and admiration. 

An unaccountable opposition is manifested against granting 
educational privileges to women. 

There are unsuccessful merchants who would have been 
excellent farmers, and many farmers of the most thriftless 
order, who would have made enterprizing traders. The pulpit 
is burdened with stupid clergymen, whose voices are an anodyne, 
and their reasoning solid opium. Their congregations sleep as 
quietly under their clerical administration of the parish, as if 
they had taken a dose of chloroform at the commencement of 
the services. 

How, such somnambulant church-operators might have 
■‘succeeded far better in pursuits requiring muscle instead of 
brain. Lawyers, too, profoundly ignorant of law, and physicians 
who literally know nothing of the profession they are permitted 
to practise, are familiar examples of social displacement. 

One of the objections to giving women clerkships, or putting 
them in positions of accountants, actuaries, bookkeepers, bank- 
tellers, ticket-takers at railroad offices, and even conductors, and 
many other pursuits, wh-ich they might follow quite as accept- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


335 


ably as sucli services are performed by rough, coarse, unmanner- 
ed vulgarians, loathed by those obliged to come in contact with 
them,—is from a fear they might become demoralized by such 
general intercourse with the outside world. Theoretically, but 
without any valid reason, they should be occupants of the house 
at all times, and the instruments with which they should become 
familiarized, are broomsticks, needles, and teapots. 

It is discreditable to men, who have so little confidence in 
the moral perfections of their mothers and sisters as to exclude 
them from situations which would not only be eminently bene¬ 
ficial to themselves, but also to each and every community in 
w^ich their fitness , and capacity for such pursuits have been 
appreciated and encouraged. 

Objections Ukged. 

It has been urged that women could not be relied upon in 
some very common offices in which men are in charge, on ac¬ 
count of certain constitutional peculiarities, which forbid females 
from exposing themselves to varying temperatures, wetting their 
feet, etc., which would prove ruinous to their health. 

Such apprehensions are unfounded. It is true, that those 
reared so tenderly as to make them unnaturally feeble, and 
therefore more susceptible, would not have constitutions for 
some industries ; but a woman who has been allowed through 
her childhood to breathe in open air, to exercise her muscles 
out-doors, can resist any and all influences from atmospheric ex¬ 
posure, that a male organization resists. Early training, and 
not a congenital predisposition, fits or unfits either for activity 
and usefulness, in-door or out. 

In all discussions on the subject of female suffrage, a sort of 
epidemic that breaks out occasionally, to the immense alarm of 


336 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


politicians—especially tliose who dread the elevation of women, 
well knowing their intelligence and superior moral qualifica¬ 
tions would be a death-blow to their own aspirations—it is as¬ 
sumed that they are physically unfitted for pursuits in which 
men engage. 

Mental capacity is ingeniously left out of the account as 
much as possible ; and those very wise doctors who, in fear of 
having well-informed women employed to nurse sickly or de¬ 
moralized institutions, are continually harping on their inability, 
are careful to say nothing about their educational fitness to 
transact affairs far more successfully than thousands of party 
numskulls, whose only qualification for positions they disgrace 
by ignorance, is devotion to leaders bolder and more unscrupu¬ 
lous than themselves. 

Where they would Succeed. 

In courts of law ; on grand or traverse juries ; as coroners, 
sherifis, and similar offices, which require tact, good manners, firm¬ 
ness, and an accurate knowledge of legal forms, women could 
aquit themselves far more acceptably than such coarse, profane, 
offensive occupants as sometimes hold those places. 

In March, 1870, an experiment was tried in the Territory 
of Wyoming, for the first time since the formation of a civil 
government in America, of placing women on a jury. 

A wretch, by the name of Cowie, was on trial for murder. 
The panel had upon it six females and six males. After a pro- 
.tracted deliberation of four days and nights, a verdict of man¬ 
slaughter was rendered. 

Of course, the ladies were exceedingly fatigued, but their 
resolution, and the dignity and solemnity of the occasion, won 
for them the admiration of the whole country. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


337 


Hardly, however, had the eclat of their services been 
heralded over the country, than it was hmited about that their 
husbands were dissatisfied with such a protracted absence of 
their wives from domestic duties. Worse still, a busy press 
was active in propagating a story that another source of dis¬ 
satisfaction grew out of having their beloved helpmates shut up 
four days and nights with strange men, sturdy yeomen, of whom 
they knew neither good nor evil. 

That must have been an attempt at merriment, or the out¬ 
growth of a mischievous disposition to destroy the infiuence 
which women were acquiring in their praiseworthy efforts in a 
new and important sphere of action. 


Hardy Discipline. 

Children bom to apparent affluence, tenderly managed, by 
unexpected family reverses have been often thrown upon the 
cold charity of the world to grapple with poverty in its severest 
forms. Iceberg philanthropists seldom thaw at the sight 
of wretchedness that can best he warmed by money. 

In transitions from one social extreme to another, the body 
suffers from no shocks that essentially impairs it, while a hope 
is entertained of ultimately rising above poverty to the realiza¬ 
tion of influence and comforts. Some fall by the way, whose 
feeble organization is unequal to the depressing wretchedness 
of hope deferred. But how many live through painful scenes 
of want and mortification to reach old age in a better aspect 
than when they first began to battle with tribulations! 

Children of indigent parentage throng the streets of every 
city, barefooted, hatless, bonnetless, thinly clad, and oppressed by 
hunger, braving storms, whose niddy cheeks hear witness to 

the invigorating influence of fresh air. 

22 


338 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Female cliildren from sucli sources are factory operatives. 
They are domestics, and in whatever position they may occupy 
at service, are not only expected, but are ord-ered to do that 
which as often as otherwise obliges them to be standing in 
water—handling wet clothes, cold and chilling to their warm 
blood; and yet they sustain a higher standard of health than 
the pampered offspring of their masters and mistresses, imag¬ 
ined to have been born to a better inheritance. 

It is no more dangerous to have one’s feet in cold water than 
to have their hands in it. There is nothing in the anatomy of 
a woman’s body that indicates a greater susceptibility in her 
feet than in her lingers. 

The whole body, as individual limbs, or the face, may be 
accustomed to endurances that would be detrimental to a novice 
in such kinds of exposure. A sudden plunge into a cold bath 
reduces vital temperature. In coming out, it returns with 
accelerated force. But the after-glow, so much coveted by 
ladies, and of which they speak with enthusiasm, as delightful 
in the transition from a bath to a warm room, is a dearly pur¬ 
chased pleasure by some hydropathic advocates. 

That after-glow draws largely upon the vitality of those of 
extremely delicate organization. It takes so much from the 
fountain, that it finally ceases to rise to its normal level. A lady 
may dissipate in a bath, to her injury, quite as readily as with 
chloroform or opium. Their effects, however, are widely differ¬ 
ent, though both lead to the gates of death. Excess in any¬ 
thing enervates. Begularity, even in the violation of organic 
laws, does not produce derangements immediately. 

Sudden cold douches are as unbearable as electric shocks; 
still, by gradually practising, as, for example, keeping the hands 
or feet a long while in intensely cold water, no injury ensues. 

Pearl divers descend thirty and forty feet, and walk about 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


339 


deliberately on the bottom. Suspending respiration tbus is an 
education of the lungs to meet the contingency of their pro¬ 
fession. Washer-women in Paris paddle in the Seine with the 
freedom of ducks—always cold and wet; yet they live to the 
ordinary age of those who have had no experience in aquatics. 

The muscle of men becomes stronger and more massive 
than in women, because they are more exercised in all forms of 
activity. Just as the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined. 

As soon as muscles are required to perform an increased 
amount of service in a particular routine of action, an extra 
volume of blood circulates in them, which is equivalent to giv¬ 
ing them more food than when their labors were less. 

Thus, a blacksmith’s hammer-arm is larger than the other, 
because the weight to be habitually moved in forging at his 
anvil requires increased muscular force. It is, therefore, more 
copiously nourished. 

The stonecutter’s arm becomes larger that wields a mallet, 
than its mate directing the chisel. Ballet-dancers, rope-per¬ 
formers, circus-riders, and professional pedestrians, have won¬ 
derfully fine lower extremities, while their arms appear dispro- 
portionably small, in consequence of not having an increased 
circulation directed to them. 

On the other hand, porters, or those who are constantly 
handling, moving, and lifting heavy, boxes, barrels, etc., or car¬ 
rying burdens on their backs or shoulders, have a prodigious 
massiveness of the pectoral muscles about the upper part of the 
chest and lumbar region. 

It is one of the strange sights at the port of Havana to 
watch the play of muscles of nude burden-carriers in discharg¬ 
ing vessels, which stand out in living prominence. 

Stevedores, in Sicily, walk up a plank with a bale of rags 
on their brawny shoulders, weighing, upon an average, four 


340 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


hundred pounds. They move off deliberately, as though not 
particularly embarrassed. 

We have a distinct recollection of seeing a Turkish porter, 
passing through a street in Smyrna, with a barrel of ^bTew- 
England rum slung to his arched back. 

Processes which develop strength in men, will also develop 
strength in women. Arab girls, on the banks of the Nile, and 
indeed all over Syria, assist one another in raising heavy jars of 
water to their head, which 'they carry off to distant villages 
with apparent ease, rarely touching the vessel with their hands, 
so admirably are they poised. 

Files of those dark-eyed, supple nymphs, in social chat, 
cheerfully wend their way for one or two miles, without the 
least apparent fatigue. Such habitual exercise of all their 
muscles brings out the finest imaginable proportions of the 
body. Every fibre is urged to a full state of tension. 

Those bronzed females, whose symmetrical forms cannot be 
excelled in any country, know nothing of numerous complaints 
which are the burden of our civilization. They have neither 
distorted spines, drooping shoulders, or contracted waists. 
Maternity is rarely attended with anxiety. Apprehending no 
danger, they are never harassed by nervous anticipations, or 
depressed with thoughts of danger. 

Were orthopedic surgeons, whose specialty is to warp dis¬ 
torted bones into position, to treat their patients to sustaining 
weights on their heads, and exercise with them,.their success 
would be far more satisfactory. Put the muscles into action, 
properly directed, and they will certainly adjust the distorted 
parts, by contracting forcibly till the deviating bone is gradually 
restored to its natural relations. 



■WATER CARRIER OF THE NILE. PISH CARRIERS OF MARSEILLES. 
WOMEN OF THE VINEYARD, 



















































































. » 



THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


341 


Who are Distorted? 

Young ladies brought up in luxurious indolence are the 
principal sufferers from incurvations of the spine. Family opu¬ 
lence is not uufrequently the destruction of heirs to an estate. 
Rich girls are made puny, feeble, and lifeless by their dresses, 
table luxuries, gas-lights when they ought to be in bed, by opera 
excitements, piano drillings, unventilated apartments, and 
brain-burning novels! 

When very young, they should be permitted to range in loose 
garments, and be as free as the poor man’s daughters. That is 
the way to form a good constitution. If, however, the misfor¬ 
tune of a spinal curvature overtakes them, let them promenade 
regularly with as much of a weight on the head as they can 
carry. Do it in the garden or open field, rather than in a draw¬ 
ing-room. Being lashed down to an inclined plane is an ab¬ 
surdity, and deserves professional condemnation. Liberate 
their oppressed ribs; give them coarse food, instead of dry 
toast and tea. Imitate the vigorous girls of Egypt. Theories 
disappear before facts in orthopedic surgery: 

" Natura duce was the text 
Of ancient Hippocrates, 

But we shall lead old Nature next, 

The force of art so great is.” 


CHAPTER XXVm. 


BRAIIf Fokce. 

Mental Differences—Genius not to be Purchased—Soul—Molecules of 
Matter Perpetually Re-arranged—Duplication of Organs—Brains Look 
Alike—A Divine Mystery—Male and Female Brains—No Apparent 
Anatomical Difference. 

Ko one pretends to question the universal opinion that in¬ 
tellection is manifested through the instrumentality of the 
brain, a poorly understood organ. 

Brain force, that exercise of the will which places humanity 
at the head, and gives man control over animals, and, in fact, 
over the whole world, perplexes philosophers as much now as in 
the earliest periods of philosophical inquiry. 

Science affords hut little light for conducting investigations 
which have in view an easy explanation of cerebral functions. 
That positive something which is a power, exercised by indi¬ 
viduals in producing great, or, indeed, any results, is potent, 
and almost irresistible in its fullest development. 

Some are superior to others, because they originate thoughts. 
Mechanical inventors, those having the faculty of combining 
complicated motions, resulting in the production of labor-saving 
machines, or who conceive unique designs, and execute splendid 
works in art, must have brains intrinsically different from those 
who are totally incapable of exhibiting new and striking forms 
of talent. 

Poets, writers of exciting fiction—admitted to possess active 
imaginations—create scenes and circumstances, which are trans- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


343 


ferred to paper, as the painter does an ideal image to canvas, to 
delight those who have no similar inspirations. Some, then, 
have a capacity for enjoying the mental productions of others. 
They have, too, a skill in searching out beauties, and of detect¬ 
ing faults, without a faculty of originating. 

Yet, in a dissection of the brain, the most accomplished 
anatomist cannot detect the slightest difference in structure. 
One may exceed the other slightly, perhaps, in weight. But 
many a genius has had a small head, and thousands of distin¬ 
guished fools had a brain surprisingly large. 

Misers see phantom dollars upon the same philosophical 
principle that an architect sees in his mind’s eye the structure 
he proposes to erect. Both contemplate an intangible repre¬ 
sentation, which is copied and made real. 

Whether education changes the arrangement of cerebral 
fibres, requires further investigation. It develops and directs 
innate powers which otherwise might have remained partially 
dormant. 

A knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic, or utter 
ignorance of those useful branches, is no evidence of an in¬ 
ability to invent or make discoveries of importance to man¬ 
kind. 

Genius. 

Genius can neither be bought, sold, nor transferred. It 
appertains to individuals. Hence they who possess it in an 
eminent degree, when directed for the advancement of the 
common good, are regarded as public benefactors. When extra¬ 
ordinary intellectual endowments are wasted in frivolous pur¬ 
suits, or the envied possessor of rare cerebral gifts fritters away 
opportunities for enlarging his own orbit and advancing the 
interests of the community, society says he lived to no pnr- 


344 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


pose, and died without leaving a brilliant memorial of bis 
existence. 

A perfectly developed mind depends on a perfectly devel¬ 
oped condition of the apparatus by which it is manifested. 

A body may be mutilated to an extraordinary degree without 
at all limiting the range of intellect. A member of the British 
parliament was born without arms or legs, yet he is a man of 
clear perceptions and unclouded judgment. 

When all distinguishing characteristics of a well-balanced 
intellect are active and even brilliant, every limb may be am¬ 
putated, both ears removed, both eyes blinded, the teeth 
extracted, the tongue severed, and many more terrible mutila¬ 
tions inflicted without essentially impairing intellection, which 
remains as complete before. 

The Soul. 

When those material instrumentalities by which mind is 
manifested are injured or destroyed, then there can be no 
conscious volitions. 

It is argued that the soul is something quite independent 
and distinct from the machinery of organic life, through the 
instrumentality of which its essential attributes are manifested. 

If food is withheld too long, a debility of the body follows 
and the mind faltei*s. If the tissues are not supplied with 
materials for repairing a waste constantly going on in the 
system, organs cease to operate. Death ensues, and the soul 
departs. 

Our bodies are all the time receiving new materials, and 
throwing off effete substance that has imparted its vitality. 
Let this operation be suspended even but for a verv brief 
period, and derangements and death would be inevitable. 


TIJE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


345 . 


Particles received yesterday are ready to be removed to¬ 
day, while new ones, jnst elaborated from food, take their 
places. Thus life is mechanically sustained. 

It is, therefore, morally certain that mind is an independent, 
intangible something, which exhibits itself through vitalized 
matter. From whence it came, or where it goes, belongs to 
the province of revealed religion to elucidate. 

Duplication. 

Animals are organized beings, varying in their forms, both 
externally and internally, according to a specific service they 
are to perform in the economy of nature. As far as naturalists 
have carried their investigations, each and every one, including 
man, are duplicated in their bones, muscles, members, and 
special nerves of sense. 

Two halves, rarely varying much in form, number, or 
weight, are united to make one symmetrical whole. 

Thus there are two brains united, two eyes, two ears, two 
olfactory cavities, with two sets of nerves alike on the two. 
■sides, two kidneys, two arms, two feet, and, in the foetal state, 
each jaw was in two pieces. 

An obvious advantage in thus duplicating so many parts, 
is to increase and concentrate force, whether vital or mechan¬ 
ical. Even the heart is double. One heart throws blood into 
the lungs, while the other propels it through the body. 
By welding them together, less room was required, and 
compactness in packing is one of the wonders disclosed by 
dissection. 

In respect to the brain, nerves, and muscles, when one set 
are out of order, or they can no longer perform their part in 

the circle of vital movements, thought, volitions, and muscular 
22 * 


346 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


efforts are solely carried on by the other half, which is unim¬ 
paired. 

We hear with one ear, see with one eye, chew on one side, 
taste with half a tongue, secrete with one kidney, locomote 
on one leg, and do very well with one arm; and in a paralysis 
of liaK the body, drag it about for years, while all the powers 
of life are carried on and regulated by the sound side. 

Worms are an aggregation of rings or sections, each of 
which is almost a distinct individual, having its own breathing 
orifice, its own ganglions, or nervous centres, equivalent to a 
brain, and its own independent locomotive apparatus. 

Some of the annelides may be cut into pieces, and each one 
will become a distinct, complete, independent being. 

One set of digestive apparatus answers for a double set of 
organs in all animals, as one boiler is sufficient for a double 
engine in steam-vessels. 

Distinction without a Difference. 

To all appearance, human brains are alike in structure. 
One may be larger than another, but it is quite impossible to 
discriminate a male from a female brain, otherwise than upon 
the received opinion that the latter is smallest. 

On the dissecting-table, the most expert anatomist could 
not designate the brain of a statesman from that of a scavenger. 
They are essentially alike, and yet they differ in a manner, 
while living, which no one has yet been able to explain. 

If we were not alike in regard to the number and arrange¬ 
ments of our organs, we could neither think nor act alike. 
Anatomists, however, discover no difference in the structure 
or disposition of the brain, nerve, or muscles. Therefore, a 
■ great mystery, remains unsolved, notwithstanding all that has 
been taught in elucidation of the laws of life. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


347 


Passive Organs. 

Witli eyes, an invisible conscious entity within the brain 
sees what is transpiring without. It hears with the ears, feels 
through the nerves, tastes with the tongue, and contracts muscles 
by a force acting from within. An eye cannot see, or an ear 
hear. They are completely passive, simply being instruments 
constructed for conducting to the soul’s residence information 
that could not in any other manner or way be communicated. 

Thinkers who exercise their muscles, in-door and out, 
discreetly, have a longer life than those who are careless in 
their habits, and sluggish in their movements. 

More women are moved by the brain-force of others, than 
among an equal number of men; but there are female writers 
whose mental capacity has not been equalled by the other sex 
in any branch of literature. 

Brain-force is a Divine mystery. Its influence is felt, but 
that is all we know about it. There is no art or device that 
did not originate in a brain. There, too, conceptions, complex 
and intricate, may be kept safely for future use, or remain 
quiescent till the golden bowl is broken at the fountain. 

Whatever is fabricated by human hands, must flrst have 
existed in the brain—so legibly photographed there, the mind 
examines the pattern as the work of imitating proceeded till 
completed. 

There being no apparent difference in the brains of the 
sexes, and experience favoring the opinion there is none, why 
cannot women do all that men accomplish of value to society ? 
They are entitled in equity to all rights and privileges in the 
exercise of the talents God has given them, and no opportunity 
should be omitted, on their part, for exercising that brain-force 
in all lawful enterprises and pursuits. 


CHAPTEE XXIX.. 


OVER-WOEKIKG THE BeAIH. 

Must be Exercised to be kept in Order—^Must have Periods of Rest—Sleep— 

A Sound Mind—Predisposing Cause of Madness—Political Friction— 

Oriental Calmness—Sudden Death—Avarice. 

Theee is a popular notion that the brain may he over-taxed; 
and it is well founded. Those who dwell wholly and con¬ 
tinually on one idea,—a perpetual hobby,—injure the organ by 
compelling one set of fibres, tubes, or molecules, we know not 
which, to be too much and too long exercised without relax¬ 
ation. 

Relaxation is as necessary for the brain as for the muscles. 
Alternations of mental action and reasonable repose are neces¬ 
sary in the constitution of humanity. 

Those who have exercised the brain pleasurably, through a 
long life of industry, have had clearer perceptions, and a higher 
order of intelligence, than those whose mental action is irre¬ 
gular: becoming suddenly excited, and then relaxing into 
thoughtless indolence, is particularly injurious. 

The more the brain is used without abuse, the more com¬ 
plete its functions. It may be injured by concentrating cerebral 
force too long, or confining the mind to the consideration of 
one problem, or series of cogitations, to the exclusion of other 
thoughts, or the intrusion of impressions that might divert the 
mind from the order in which the individual is resolved to con¬ 
centrate his thoughts. 


THE . WAYS OF WOMEN. 


349 


Hence leaders of isms, furious reformers, radical agitators, 
inventors, who dwell long and earnestly on certain mechanical 
contrivances, as the quadrature of the circle; mad poets, those 
creatures of imagination, who feel themselves unappreciated, 
and, therefore, neglected,—^become eccentric, and in extreme 
cases insane, because the brain has had no rest. 

Alternations oe Labor and Eest. 

Intervals of relaxation of one set or parts of the thinking 
apparatus is necessary, while others are operating. The same 
law governs the organs of digestion. After the stomach has 
prepared the food received, it passes onward to the alimentary 
canal. In the meanwhile,, it reposes till the next meal is 
received, thus recuperating in the intervals. Without such 
opportunities for rest, derangements would inevitably occur. In 
fact, they do in those who are continually violating the laws of 
health, by imposing too much service on that badly-treated 
viscus. Dyspepsia, gastric pains, and chronic inflammations are 
penalties for gorging the stomach too much, too often, and 
with materials that bring on direct disease, in an effort to digest 
what is indigestible. That is forced labor. 

An eye must have repose, the heart is perfectly at rest an 
instant between its pulsations, and beats on, in some bosoms, 
one hundred years, unimpaired. 

Birds sleep at night; reptiles retire to their holes; Ashes 
balance themselves on their pectoral fins in the darkness oi 
aquatic night in slumber. It is thus, while all is quiet, and 
each and every animal puts itself in a position most favorable 
for rest, that nervous force re-accumulates for meeting demands 
that may be made upon the system the coming day. 

The brain must sleep, and, in hours of total unconscious- 


350 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


ness, if there are no irregularities in the circulation or digestion, 
regathers that which invigorates it for the waking hour. 

Imperfect nutrition of the brain is quite as much the cause 
of irregular action as being over-taxed with one burden, or a 
ceaseless devotion to one engrossing theme. 

If the liver is diseased, the spleen disordered, the pancreas, 
scirrhus, or the stomach inadequate to the performance of its 
ordinary duties, the brain soon becomes impoverished. It is 
impossible to carry on its appropriate functions on a short 
allowance. 


A Sound Mind. 

A sound mind is intimately associated with good health, and 
that is maintained by nutritious food and perfect digestion. 

Lunatic asylums furnish painful examples of impaired brains, 
but those institutions have not yet had the independence to 
publish such details as would satisfactorily explain many true 
causes of insanity in a large proportion of their inmates. 

It is, perhaps, an exercise of philanthropic discretion not to 
report what might mortify, pain, or horrify. 

A predisposing cause of moodiness, nervous excitability, 
melancholy, and various phases of insanity, may be traced almost 
invariably to a violation of some law of life. 

An apology may be found for an unfortunate sufferer, by 
pleading his ignorance; but it is, nevertheless, a transgression. 
It is charitable to presume hard study has destroyed many 
promising intellects, but medical authorities teach us that the 
mind is often er overthrown by the practice of vices than by an 
influx of knowledge. 

Rather than admit the destruction of reason by intense 
literary application, writers are beginning to intimate that abuses 
seK-imposed demand a more strict professional scrutiny. 


4 ^ 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 351 

It might be thought premature, or at least inexpedient to 
announce authoratively in annual reports, that restraints actually 
bring on madness in some of its saddest forms. 

Our civilization imposes barriers against the indulgence of 
many natural wants. A reflex action deranges the brain. 

When Mahometans are insane, it is usually caused by in¬ 
juries of the skull, frights, sudden surprisals, deprivation of 
cherished rights, opium, hasheesh, smoking, etc., but rarely, if 
ever, from moral causes. Moslem fanatics, like those in Chris¬ 
tian coiintries, become eccentric and insane too. Blighted 
hopes, disappointments in love, or religious fervor, seldom lead 
to alienations of mind in Orientals. 

They have • among them fanatical individuals, whose tem¬ 
peraments are like those of the same nervous type in all coun¬ 
tries. When thwarted in favorite schemes for revolutionizing 
a neighborhood or a state, disappointment brings on analagous 
forms of insanity. 

Political rebuffs, unsuccessful enterprises, religious theories 
which others oppose, self-imposed missions ostensibly for the 
public good, which were fully intended to be particularly bene¬ 
ficial to themselves, are avenues to lunacy. Each and all of 
them are proper examples of over-working the brain. 

Still, over-working that organ is not quite as common as 
may have been supposed. A vindictive determination to do 
what is not agreeable to others, meets with opposition that not 
unfrequently reacts upon an excited brain beyond what it can 
bear. That, however, is not to be understood as over-working 
it. Does a calm, considerate exercise of acquiring, comparing, 
and analyzing tend to the brain’s injury ? Ho. 

Have many young men or misses of sixteen ruined their 
intellect by study ? 

That their minds have given way in early youth is undeni- 


352 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


able; but not by scliooling the brain in the ordinary manner 
of being educated. One-idea people are numerous, and in this 
country among women, particularly. When necessity compels 
them to laborious devotion to one unvarying pursuit, as stitch¬ 
ing with a needle, running a sewing machine, braiding straw, 
reading proof-sheets, or similar exhausting industries, the ner¬ 
vous system is often seriously prostrated. Indeed, the con¬ 
templation of one thing all the while, as more prominent than 
all others, without reasonable relaxation, is excessively over¬ 
working the brain. 


Explosion of Life. 

Commmercial men in communities where property is the 
only passport to position, over-work the brain more rapidly 
and more frequently than women. 

Men occasionally drop dead by a sudden explosion, as it were, 
of vital force. Culture, taste, refined sentiments, a delicate 
perception of what constitutes good breeding, or lays claim to re¬ 
spect and attentions, weigh nothing where the chink of gold gives 
more pleasure than the music of the greatest masters of melody. 

Women are apt, with an unexpected change in social posi¬ 
tion, to become deaf to all sounds not associated with the 
rustle of rich dresses, and some die martyrs to an idea that a 
wardrobe makes a lady. 

Any faculty of the mind may be exercised to its exceeding 
detriment. Allowing the powers of intellect to be wholly 
given to the acquisition of wealth, to the exclusion of whatever 
relates to the moral nature, social duties and obligations, is 
avarice. That is, in fact, a disease of the organ in which senti¬ 
ments are elaborated. It is a malady that destroys the indivi¬ 
dual before he is ready to enjoy pleasures and advantages he 
had promised himself when riches were secured. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


353 


A history of trade in its successful aspects, whicli includes 
any position in which an adequate income is realized for per¬ 
sonal services or skill in the management of funds, would show 
that not one in five thousand who heap up treasures, ever has 
the benefit of them. Heirs-at-law, who may never have earned 
a farthing, usually have the spending of such fortunes. 

"When a property becomes colossal, a little of it is devised oc-' 
casionally to eleemosynary institutions, or in special charities 
for securing the favor of heaven, but not because such spas- 
Tiodic benevolence arises from a religious sentiment. 

It is nothing more nor less than a willingness to purchase 
what could not be hoped for on the score of merit. A mercan¬ 
tile transaction to the last breath. 

To allow avarice to obtain a mastery, is a fatal mistake. 
The late Mr. George Peabody gave a bright example of the 
way of finding happiness, by making others so with the abund¬ 
ance which a kind Providence had placed at his disposal. The 
honored Peter Cooper, of Hew York, has heaven in advance. 

The whole of us, mind and body, must be used, but not 
abused. Happiness being the object of pursuit, unrecorded 
miseries are heroically endured to gain what cannot be enjoyed 
when attained. 

’Convulsive attempts at reformation, when we are alarmed 
at a realizing sense of the results of disappointed schemes, is 
snatching at fioating straws. 

An over-worked brain must abide the consequences of 
neglected hygienic laws. For a woman to live many years, she 
must live simply, industriously, and in obedience to her inborn 
intuitive sense of what is right and what is wrong, and she must 
vary her pursuits, so that her brain may have as much oppor¬ 
tunity for rest as she requires for her hands and feet. 


CHAPTER XXX. 


Their Oomplexioh. 

Physical Bearing—Cosmetics—Let them alone—Eruptions—Pearl Powder— 

Water as a Purifier—Pores of the Skin—Temperature of the Body— 

Insensible Perspiration—Tint of the Complexion—Antimony. 

l^EVEE perfectly satisfied with what nature in kindness has 
bestowed upon them, however fresh, healthy, or beautiful, 
women are continually exercising their fertile minds in pursuit 
of means for improving their appearance. They tax their 
ingenuity for increasing the effect of their facial expression and 
figure. 

A man may be massive, bearded, and manifest the highest 
intellectual power, and yet not be a beauty. Those exterior 
evidences of his strength and masculine maturity are altogether 
different from those traits and infiuences which characterize 
women. There are concentrated in her person a compound 
of symmetry, texture, and indefinable properties not readily 
expressed, which, nevertheless, are felt and acknowledged to 
exist. 

When cultivated, and her soul educated to correspond with 
her positive corporeal attributes, a woman governs without 
speaking, and commands by an ineffable magnetism. 

She has an innate disposition to appear to the best advan¬ 
tage, and in that way her power is augmented, and her sove¬ 
reignty over the male sex secured. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


355 


Ambitious to Look Well. 

Impressed with a conviction that she can improve her 
appearance by processes of art, women of all countries are the 
patrons of cosmetics. The savage female seeks such appliances 
among simples of the field, and in mineral preparations, which 
make her hideous, in her fancied metamoi’phosis for the better; 
perfectly loathsome, if not horrid, to the eyes of a civilized 
being. 

A woman’s complexion, the expression of her eyes, the 
arrangement of her hair, the size of her hands and her feet, 
occupy her thoughts too much, if truthfully represented by 
writers of their own sex. And it is unquestionably true they 
heroically submit to self-imposed tortures, with an expectation 
of appearing essentially improved in appearance in the estima¬ 
tion of those with whom they associate. 

Not one article in the catalogue of miscalled beautifiers, of 
which ladies are usually munificent patrons, is worth having, 
or free from objection on account of deleterious properties in 
their composition. 

Most cosmetics are positively injurious to the skin. 

There are no exceptions in favor of any, however popular 
they may appear from the representations of schooled advertisers, 
or the opinion of fair customers, to the contrary. 


Cutaneous Blemishes. 

Eruptions, cutaneous enlargements, chronic infiammatory 
flushes, bordering on erysipelatous redness, resisting ordinary 
discutient applications, are always made worse by such im¬ 
proper treatment as many jin indiscreet woman voluntarily 


356 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


imposes upon lierself, under a hopeful expectation of a tri¬ 
umphant success in dispersing them. 

Women relinquish their idols reluctantly; therefore, the 
probability of convincing them by arguments, or even the pre¬ 
sentation of facts, that they would gain vastly more by 
abandoning the external application of washes and powders, 
which they have been accustomed to regard as important 
appendages of their toilet, is not entertained. 

Eougeing. 

Paints have been found with female mummies in the cata¬ 
combs of Egypt, with females of an extinct race in South 
America, and even in the superficial graves of the aborigines, 
wherever the Indians have resided on this continent. 

Bountiful supplies of coloring materials dug up occasionally 
with the crumbling remains of human bodies, must have been 
considered indispensable adjuncts to female beauty by those 
who placed them there, and prove the immense antiquity of 
such appliances. Some such discoveries antedate the Pen¬ 
tateuch. 

On all the continents, but especially in America, revelations 
from very ancient graves testify to the vanity of the sex, and 
prove, moreover, that the leading elements of their character 
have always been the same in every country, in every age and 
climate, in carrying to their last resting-place materials which 
were contemplated as necessary in eternity as while sojourning 
on earth. 

Pearl-powder ranks well with ladies, being extensively used 
by them. A vague notion prevails that it is actually pul¬ 
verized pearl, and consequently must improve the skin when 
rubbed upon it. 

Such ignorance, however, is^ only found among very 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


357 


superficial fashionables, who have no aspirations beyond mak¬ 
ing a favorable impression, not by words, bnt through the 
instrumentality of art. 

It may be distasteful intelligence to assure those who pay 
liberally for genuine pearl-powder, the most approved samples 
are nothing more nor less than starch. Such as they purchase 
for their laundries by the pound, for stiffening garments, is just 
as good and valuable as that sold in quarter-ounce packages at 
several dollars, under the name of cosmetic pearl-powder. 

To be appropriately pearled for street appearance, it is 
usually dusted on so profusely, as to give the self-satisfied 
adorable a very mealy look. If some of those pearled pro- 
menaders, not unfrequently to be met with, were to dip their 
faces into a dish of flour, who would be competent to decide 
that it was not genuine impalpable pearl-powder ? 

To put it on plentifully, especially under the eyes, round 
the margin of the temples, and on the cheeks, suggests the idea 
to a spectator that there may be too much of a good thing. 

Even were it true that the application of refined starch 
were of the slightest use in whitening the skin, there is a 
reprehensible proneness to run into extremes, which is a kind of 
abuse, not of a criminal nature. 

Superiority of Water as a Cosmetic. 

The experience of centuries places good, wholesome water 
at the head of all cosmetics. It is infinitely superior to chem¬ 
ical compounds of druggists, and always has been, com¬ 
plexions compare with those of young misses who have had 
no acquaintance with cosmetics. That healthy glow which 
tints the country girl’s cheeks, who, unsophisticated and hap¬ 
pily ignorant of the mysteries of a fashionable toilette, can 


358 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


neither be improved bj art, nor imitated successfully by 
science. 

On being transferred to a city, a young lady lirst begins to 
imitate those whom she supposes to be superior to herself. 
From that day, her facial deterioration commences. Concen¬ 
trated food, stronger tea and coffee, and more of it than she 
had been accustomed to at her rural, happy home; later hours, 
musical excitations, theatrical spectacles, new exhibitions of 
the follies and frivolities of fashionable life, stimulate the pul¬ 
sations of her lieart. The brain is overtaxed, and with dancing 
and pliantoms, when day is turned into night and night into 
scenes of bewildering enchantments, the rose is no longer seen 
on her fair face. She becomes dyspectic, hectic, yellow, and 
enfeebled. 

With this condition come physicians, pills, phials, plasters 
for a pain in the side, and a troublesome cough. 

Pearl-powder will not bring back the bloom of health, nor 
rouge, spread thinly with consummate skill over a blanched, 
sunken feature, recall the lost complexion. Hygeia is dis¬ 
couraged, and takes her departure. 

Stkucture of the Skih. 

The entire surface of the body is pierced by an infinite 
number of minute openings, known as pores,—the ex¬ 
ternal termination of extremely fine tubes,—or sudorific ducts 
through which we perspire. 

Their inner extremities are coiled up in adipose tissue 
below the skin. Economy in packing, while being protected 
in a soft elastic bed, is noticeable in that beautiful arrangement 
which is equally observable in all other parts of the system. 

Through those sweat-tubes, aqueous fluid is exhaled, passing 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


359 


from within to the surface where it escapes, and is immediately 
lost by evaporation. 

When the skin is apparently dry, the escape of fluid is con¬ 
stantly going on; hut it is not seen. That is insensible per¬ 
spiration. If, however, there is any obstruction of the oriflces, 
so that the perspirable fluid cannot make its exit, then there is 
heat and fever. 

If the temperature of the body is raised several degrees in 
consequence of a quick circulation, the quantity of perspiration 
becomes augmented. Should the air be at a lower temper¬ 
ature, it is condensed and runs down in streamlets. That is 
sweating. 

Habitual application of substances which clog the emuno 
tories of the skin, and thereby prevent the escape of watery 
collections gathered in the sudoriflc tubes, must of course be 
very injurious. 

Dropsy. 

One form of dropsy is an undue collection of fluid in the 
cellular tissue below the skin. If the free escape is propor¬ 
tioned to the quantity separated from the blood, then the equi¬ 
librium of health is maintained. 

On the contrary, when not passing off regularly as fast as * 
collected, serum occasionally collects in the abdomen, the chest, 
or the limbs, which constitutes regional dropsy. 

Cosmetics of every kind must very considerably interfere 
with a free exit of perspiration, as a mechanical obstruction. 
Were the entire body plastered over with a composition which 
absolutely prevented the outlet and evaporation from the pores, 
absolutely necessary in the economy of a living being consti¬ 
tuted like ourselves, sad consequences would immediately 
follow. 


360 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


On tlie face, where cosmetics are most freely applied, the 
pores may he rendered quite useless if not destroyed by them. 
A dryness, roughness, a sickly hue, and premature wrinkles are 
the penalty of such attempts to improve upon nature. 

Tampering with Health. 

Legislation could not effectually stop the sale of quack medi¬ 
cines. People, not by any means the most intelligent, will 
have them. 

This is a glorious land of liberty, in which every one takes 
what he likes under the name of remedies. Availing themselves 
of a national weakness in that direction, ingenious speculators 
accumulate enormous fortunes by the sale of pills and other 
nostrums, represented to meet all the contingencies of life, 
which range themselves in the train of formidable diseases. 

Oleaginous compounds, not soap, are probably worse than 
liquids of a stimulating character rubbed on the skin, because 
they suddenly close up the pores. The other generates an in¬ 
flammation that is slower, but equally detrimental. 

Washes, which are announced to have a detergent property, 
but acting upon the same principle, are dangerous applications. 

Simply bathing in pure water is a thousand times superior 
to the most costly articles for giving and sustaining that soft, 
delicate complexion which indicates health and vigor. 

A better idea of the importance of these sudorific tubes may 
be formed by this curious anatomical statement, that were it 
possible to unite them all in one pipe, by joining them end to 
end, there is enough of them on the surface of an ordinary-sized 
woman, some have supposed, to extend two miles ! 

Hemarkable beauties sometimes appear to have become pre¬ 
maturely old. Faded beauties wilt rapidly when they begin to 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


3G1 


show the sere and yellow leaf. Were some of those cases in¬ 
vestigated scientifically, it might probably be shown that they 
hastened an event they dreaded, by tampering with their fine 
faces with just such appliances as we have here deprecated. In 
their anxiety to prevent the appearance of deterioration, they 
produced prematm^ely that which they intended to prevent. 


Removal of Blemishes. 

A yellowish, sallow-colored skin, which cannot be driven 
away, even temporarily, by a flush of surprise, is best treated by 
water, which acts beneficially. Children born of painted or 
enamelled mothers, are not robust. Even their mental powers 
are inferior. They are life-long sufferers in consequence of 
maternal folly. 

Fluids taken into the stomach percolate to some extent directly 
through its walls, making an exit by exosmosis on the surface, 
after having traversed through various intervening tissues. 

It is by that disposition of a portion of liquids swallowed, 
the parts are all kept soft, supple, and in a condition to glide 
easily one upon another without friction. 

By recollecting that the sudorific tubes are so numerous 
that five hundred of them exist in a single square inch, it is no 
difficult problem to explain the ready transmission of the fluid 
they transmit to the surface. 

On the back of the hand and foot there are one thousand 
pores to a square incli. On the sole of the foot and palm of the 
hand they reach the amazing number of two thousand seven 
hundred in a square inch. 

On the surface of the whole body of a woman of ordinary 
stature, there cannot be fewer than two millions three hundred 

thousand of those emunctories. 

23 * 


362 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


It is something to ponder upon, that life, so precious to all, 
is dependent upon the action of such minute, complicated 
apparatus. 

An excuse has been oifered for covering up wrinkles with 
paste, called medicated enamel, etc., that it is a privilege to re¬ 
pair old bodies externally, as it is to take drugs for counteract¬ 
ing diseases. 

If it is right for a dilapidated woman to take tonics for im¬ 
proving her physical condition, it has been argued that it is 
right and proper to attempt improving their complexion, by 
staining, frescoing, or other means, according to her standard 
of taste. 

We are not discussing the right or privilege to do just what 
a woman chooses, as a free agent, but contend that the woman 
who does it, that is, paints herself, makes an egregious mistake 
to her personal injury. 

Paints, on weather-beaten boards, are to prevent the absoi’p- 
tion of moisture, which would hasten their decay. On the 
living, paints prevent the escape of moisture, a function that 
cannot be interrupted with impunity. 


SCKUPLES AGAIiq-ST ArT. 

Artificial teeth are not classed with cosmetics, as interfering 
with vital processes, because they do not in any respect. On 
the contrary, they are important auxiliaries in preparing food 
for ready digestion. 

Formerly it was considered a sin, by conscientious persons, 
to resort to appliances of art for securing either comfort or an 
improved personal appearance. The argument resorted to was 
this, viz.: When any part or portion of the body has fallen into 
decay, it is evidently the pleasure of the Being who created us. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


363 


that we should thus gradually go to pieces, and it is wrong, 
therefore, to proceed contrary to the divine purpose. 

Influenced by such considerations, dentists were violating a 
great law, and wooden-leg makers, wig-makers, and even oculists 
in the restoration of the blind to perfect vision, are guilty of 
the violation of a law equally recognized as the will of our 
Heavenly Father. 

It belongs to the history of the dental profession, that less 
than seventy years ago many toothless ladies, scarcely able to 
articulate their hostile feelings in reference to the wicked de¬ 
vices of evil-minded men, who proposed to stud their toothless 
jaws with beautiful artiflcial teeth, shrunk back with horror at 
the idea of having such false appliances. 

With a determination not to sin by assuming to be what 
they are not, physically, artiflcial arms, glass eyes, india-rubber 
bosoms—so very common at this particular period—would not 
be accepted by some conscientious people. 

Opinionated, sectarian reformers, who are satisfled that their 
own narrow views are the express will of our Heavenly Father, 
kick against the pricks of advancing intelligence, but their ef¬ 
forts are useless. There is no statu quo in nature, nor can there 
be in humanity, without the extinction of intellect, and a 
moral death of society. 

Men and women, with the light of modern science 
and literature, cannot be kept in swaddling-clothes. Those 
who are perpetually mourning over the good old times, when 
they were young, cannot give a retrograde motion to 
the earth in its orbit, nor arrest the swelling tide of 
progress. 

There is another silly vice to which fashionable ladies are 
prone, that at least should be exposed, that it may be exten¬ 
sively condemned. It is the application of crude pulverized 


364 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


antimony on tlie margins of their eyelids, and even spread at 
the base of the under-lid, giving the hollow below a bluish tint. 
The object is to increase the brilliancy of their otherwise spark¬ 
ling optics. 

It is unaccountable that it should be supposed by quite sen¬ 
sible women, that a bluish shade of the skin,—a diffused indigo 
shading at that particular section of the face,—enhances their 
good looks. Ho grosser mistake ever quickened their enthu¬ 
siasm. 

That is used largely by Oriental females—the occupants of 
harems, particularly—for the same purpose. But they are 
semi-civilized, without souls, according to a popular tradition 
of ignorant Mahometan proprietors. 

Bepetitions of antimony or khol make the eyes irritable 
after a while. They cannot bear the strong light, and a slow 
form of inflammation attacks the lids. 

Their custom of staining their nails, palms of their hands, 
and even the soles of their feet, with henna, shows their posi¬ 
tion in the scale of intelligence, and their strict adherence to 
the customs of their equally ignorant ancestors. 

It was in Palestine this relic of remote ages—cosmetics— 
appears to have been extensively employed. Mrs. Jezebel 
painted her face. The story of her tragical death, by being 
thrown from an upper story window, incidentally brought with 
it the curious fact that she painted her face. 

Applying a weak solution of aconite to the corner of the 
eye, now practised, is intended to enlarge the pupil, and en¬ 
hance the brilliancy of those organs. A dangerous practice. 

There is too much that is unreal. There are reasonable 
boundaries, beyond which it is dangerous to proceed. Such 
practices as interfere with the higher range of vital functions, 
should have appropriate consideration. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


365 


One of the latest modern weaknesses that has had an exten¬ 
sive run, has been the passion for blonde hair. To meet the 
demand, scientific skill has provided a preparation to change 
chesnut, black, or any other head to look as though it were 
dyed in a sulphur bath. 

Mendicant old women wander through the narrow streets 
of Damascus with fiowing red locks streaming in the wind like 
bunting from the mainmast of a ship. It is the coveted color 
with them. Whether they are disposed to think it makes them 
attractive, we have no means of knowing. 

There is no composition, however skilfully prepared, that 
will compare with pure cold water as a beautifier. It is a 
perfect solvent for those accumnlations over the pores, which 
are chiefiy derived from desquamations of the scarfskin. If it 
does not readily remove them, it is owing to some mineral 
elements held in it that give it a quality called hard. Emolli¬ 
ent soaps with tepid water is a never-failing success. 

Simple warm-water baths, without the addition of cologne, 
camphor, whiskey, rum, white wine, etc., etc.,—which it is ex- 
tremly difficult to persuade fashionable ladies are not essen¬ 
tial,—or of the slightest utility. 

Avoid advertised preparations, however much extolled in 
certificates from irresponsible sources. They are deceptions. 
Water is plenty, inodorous, tastless, colorless, aud precisely 
meets the demands of our nature externally. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


Female Education'. 

What Education is not—New Avenues for Industry must be Opened for 
Women—Excess of Female Population—They have been Neglected. 

Libraries are burdened with essays on this subject, and 
there is room for more. Every one wlio has given attention to it, 
seems oppressed with new theories and plans, exceedingly im¬ 
portant in the estimation of those from whom they emanate. 
Each writer contemplates his own proposition as the only 
fitting method for elevating woman to the sphere she was 
designed to adorn. 

Men who never had the honor of having a daughter, and 
desiccated spinsters who will never be mothers, are those most 
disposed to contribute copiously to the literature of female 
education. Meither of them are qualified for guides. It is 
a matter of profound interest to those who appreciate the 
importance of educational training, to determine how females 
should be taught to meet the ever-varying phases of modem 
society. 

Education does not mean learning to read and write, work¬ 
ing worsted artistically, or playing the piano. 'Nor should the 
mind of woman be regarded of such small value as to be put 
off with indifferent instruction. 

Christian civilization should righteously recognize her as 
man’s intellectual equal. A question yet to be decided is, 
whether she is not also his political equal. 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


367 


If she has not the same amount of muscular strength, she 
has the same number of muscles, disposed of in the same 
maimer. 

Modern thinkers on the constitution and mission of human¬ 
ity, tacitly admit an equality of the sexes. That old adage, 
that man is strong and woman weak, is properly questioned of 
late. A woman’s imaginary pictures of moral worth, virtue, 
and beauty, are better drawn than those by men. 

In language, music, and the fine arts, she is by no means 
inferior. Her mechanical ingenuity in construction is not un- 
frequently very surprising. The constructive faculty of woman 
is far above the level assigned her. Devices displayed in 
needlework, pottery, sculpture, designs, the actual manufacture 
of metallic pens, jewelry, timepieces, and the peculiar finish 
given to watches,—the product of their own hands in this 
country,—confirm an opinion long entertained, that they are 
unequalled mechanics, when systematically instructed, as men 
are taught a handicraft. 

A needle is a tool. If they can direct that adroitly, as it is 
admitted they do, they might, with equal facility, vary their 
pursuits, and use other instruments just as readily. In watch¬ 
making, particularly, proprietors of great establishments ac- 
knowledge their unrivalled skill and delicacy of touch. 

Therefore, it must be admitted women can do with their 
fingers whatever men accomplish. Custom, more arbitrary than 
laws, has placed them where they are not required to engage in 
many rough employments, ordinarily considered within the 
province of men, simply because the dress of the latter gives 
them greater freedom of motion, favorable for a free, energetic, 
and speedy exercise of their limbs. 


368 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Practical Instruction. 

There are trades and pursuits which women are abundantly 
able to conduct with advantage to themselves and society; and 
their education, therefore, should have that practical direction 
which will qualify them to engage in honorable, remunerative 
efforts. In-door industries, commonly assigned to females, 
rarely bring them compensation enough for purchasing decent 
clothing. They are certainly entitled to something beyond the 
demands of immediate necessity. An opportunity to acquire 
more than is needed for the present, in reference to the future, 
should not be denied them. 

Such is the extraordinary activity of the human mind at this 
particular juncture, there is scarcely a branch of mechanical 
business, however humble, that is not facilitated and made 
easier through the inventive genius of man. Machines make 
shoe-lasts, shoes, boots, ox-yokes, rakes, wheels, gun-stocks, 
mowers, reapers, ropes, cordage, carpets, cloth, hats: and, in 
short, what is there needed in the daily affairs of life not made 
by automatic machinery ? Certainly spinning, weaving, card¬ 
ing, reeling, sewing, knitting, and hundreds of other similar 
operations are wholly accomplished by machines propelled by 
water, steam, or electricity, as though animated by an intelli¬ 
gent spirit within. Cannon cast solidly are bored of any 
determined calibre, without personal attention, when once the 
drill is set in motion. 

Even pictures are copied by machinery, and news is sent 
round the globe in a few minutes, so that everything bears testi¬ 
mony to the resources of genius in the production of many 
modes of doing what was formerly the product of human 
hands. 

One machine performs the work of hundreds of operatives, 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


369 


and yet nothing is cheapened, as might reasonably be expected 
with the facilities of this over-fast age. 

When boots and shoes, stockings, cloths, hats, coats, dresses, 
etc., were slowly fabricated by hand-labor, they were far 
cheaper than at present. 

How can it be explained ? 

A machine moved by steam-power will now turn out three 
hundred pairs of ladies’ boots in one day, and yet they actually 
cost more than when a good workman could scarcely make two 
pairs in a day, using his greatest diligence. » 

There seems scarcely a limit to what is possible, when men 
of genius interrogate nature. 

Therefore, there is a necessity for opening new avenues for 
female enterprise. The spheres they have occupied from a re¬ 
mote antiquity are closed to them, in the way of industry, by 
inventions which wholly supersede them. 

Women must have bread and breathing-room, even if the 
population can be seiwed better and more rapidly than formerly 
by their busy fingers. 

Armies, navies, and the mercantile marine take away vast 
numbers of men. Women remain at home, and hence they 
outnumber very largely the males in cities and in the old States of 
the Union. Their prospect is discouraging for sustaining them¬ 
selves, unless society accords to them the right to engage in pur¬ 
suits which were once considered exclusively belonging to men. 

There are more women than men in many of the European 
states and kingdoms, and it is so also in extensive countries of 
Asia and Africa. 

This excess of female population is due entirely to the evil 
propensities of men: their love for roaming excitement, a bel¬ 
ligerent disposition, and the exactions of despotic rulers who 
control their destiny in many countries. 


370 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Most cities on the coast lines of the United States have an 
excess of females by far outnumbering the male population. 
Sea-service, the needs of new lands for agricultural laborers far 
back in the interior; mining operations now extensively car¬ 
ried on in the great mining regions of the West, induce men to 
leave their native places to better their circumstances, while 
their wives and sisters and daughters remain at home. 

Women cannot submit to the hardships, privations, and 
demoralizing tendencies of many pursuits which characterize 
those far-off enterprises. There is a rudeness of manner, and a 
disregard for conventional forms which belong to cultivated 
society. Civilization accords to women the expectation of being 
treated as beings holding a balance of power in those social 
relations which secure propriety and refinement; and all, in fact, 
which is good, noble, and morally elevated in any community, 
forbids they should be exposed to the roughness, rudeness, and 
hardships of gold-digging researches. 

Law of Equalization. 

An equalization of the sexes is maintained with peculiar 
regularity in the animal kingdom. Where there is an apparent 
excess of one or the other, it is due to local causes; but it in no 
way effects a law which secures results most beneficial to the 
perpetuity of a species. There is neither failure in the law of 
reproduction to meet losses, nor the least danger of extinction, 
unless a ruthless war of extermination is waged by man, in the 
hunting of beaver, buffaloes, and whales. 

When males are too numerous, they fight among themselves, 
and slaughter one another till a proper proportion in reference 
to the females is established. If females are in excess, there is 
a law of adjustment immediately brougliHnto operation which 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 371 

reduces them gradually without producing violent commotion 
^ or perceptible disturbance. 

Again, it is equally curious to observe that when there are 
too many inhabitants in a given area, among wild animals or 
even aquatic beings, so that the products of the soil or a feed¬ 
ing region of the sea are inadequate to their healthy support, 
disease comes in the character of an equalizing agent. Thus 
epidemics and plagues in over-stocked cities invariably subside 
at a point that saves a remnant, since extinction is not contem¬ 
plated in a law which the philosopher recognizes as a means of 
securing a connecting link in a long chain of existence, the loss 
of which might lead to conditions and revolutions quite beyond 
our comprehension. 

Alarms are occasionally sounded in village lecture-rooms, 
that women so much outnumber men in the l^ew England 
States,—being regarded as non-producers in an agricultural 
sense,—that something must be done to meet the emergency. 

It is not alleged they are idle, or in any respect a burden to 
the community. They consume food, to be sure, and it is 
equally true they neither plough, chop wood, or labor in the 
field, nor should they do either. 

Women aee Oederly. 

There is not the slightest ground for alarm, because women 
never band together for political agitation; they never pre¬ 
pare revolutions, nor is social order outraged by them, however 
erratic a few peculiar individuals may appear in vain attempts 
and exhibitions not in accordance with their nature. 

Women neither infest bar-rooms, loiter away the day in 
saloons, lager-beer vaults, or march through town in hostile 
bands, destroying printing-offices, or combine in squads for rob- 


372 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


bing* railroad trains. Neither do they stuff ballot-boxes, nor 
break open prisons for the liberation of thieves or accomplices # 
in wickedness. 

They are not proper persons for running up and down the 
rigging of a vessel. They could not conveniently glide to the 
extremity of a yard-arm and take in sail in a gale of wind. 
Their organization unfits them for balancing themselves on a 
spar while their hands were belaying the wings of a scudding 
ship. They could not swing an axe in felling forests, drilling 
rocks in excavating canals, because the management of the in¬ 
struments used in such labors would interfere with the health 
of organs essential to maternity. 

What They can Do. 

* 

But they possess all the requisite physical and intellectual 
qualifications for managing mercantile business, and for sus¬ 
taining themselves with dignity and success as teachers, from a 
common school to chairs in universities. 

Wherever intelligence, diligence, accuracy, and honesty are 
in estimation as pre-requisites for positions, women are prepared 
for them. 

They have not been taken into favor in the past, in such re¬ 
lations, because the necessity for it did not apparently exist, as 
it now does. One sewing machine is equal to one hundred 
hand-sewers. Yet while they kept all people clothed by their 
needle industry, their wages were shamefully undervalued. 

While their hardy, bold, adventurous fathers, brothers, 
and husbands are wending their way to distant regions in 
search of localities in which their prospects would be more satis¬ 
factory, their daughters and wives remain where they were, it 
being neither proper nor always convenient to go with them to 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 373 

border settlements before some preparation is made for their 
reception. , 

Women, even in nominally Christian countries, have been 
so long excluded and neglected, and, worse still, taught to • be¬ 
lieve it was wrong to be seen or heard outside the house, it has 
become a prevalent opinion among ignoramuses they ought to 
remain there, even if left in ignorance and poverty. 

While the idea is nursed that it is improper for women to 
be exposed to sunshine, because it might bronze their complex¬ 
ion ; or exposed to out-door air, they might take cold ; or seen 
where men congregate to buy, sell, and get gain, inalienable 
rights are denied them,—they are wronged. 

What is the duty of society, now that competition in all de¬ 
partments of business makes them far more dependent than 
formerly,—especially since they outnumber the male popula¬ 
tion in the great centres of human activity ? 

Legislation for Ameliorating their Condition. 

Legislation in their behalf practically amounts to nothing. 
Acts defining their hours of labor in factories or milliners’ 
shops, are farces. It is about the same in respect to the school¬ 
ing of young girls employed in manufacturing establishments. 

They should have both protection and assistance. The lat¬ 
ter is the urgent demand. 

Ladies of fortune, and indeed those who are amply provided 
for through an affectionate forecast of-provident fathers, mo¬ 
thers, and relatives, cannot comprehend or understand the 
cry that reaches to heaven for millions of poor, heart-aching, 
penniless women; nor do those whose beauty has won for 
them privileges, comforts, and influence which wealth com¬ 
mands, sympathize sufficiently with the less fortunate of their 


374 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


sex who are apparently born to a hapless destiny. Those who 
are floating on a summer sea of prosperity are especially be¬ 
sought to listen to a plea for help from an oppressed, neglected 
sisterhood. 

There are not agriculturists enough in this country; and, 
consequently, with an abundance of the best and most produc¬ 
tive land on the globe, all the necessaries of life are excessively 
dear. The supply is not equal to the demand. Western 
grain-growing prairies might furnish the world, were they all 
tilled. 


Men out of Place. 

Thousands of puny, pale-faced, feminine, sickly, poorly-de¬ 
veloped young men, defective in muscular energy, enough in 
number for a great army, even were half of them mustered in 
a body, abound in cities, who would have the strength and 
character of men if they were cultivating land instead of meas¬ 
uring tape with a yard-stick. 

They are wasting the best years of life, deteriorating bodily 
and mentally in counting-houses, banks, insurance offices, 
confined retail shops, telegraph stations, etc., who ought to be 
infinitely more useful were they transferred to the open fields, 
devoted to agriculture. 

They should yield their places at desks and behind counters 
to women, qualified to do all they do, who are suffering for 
employments for which they are abundantly qualified. 

A social revolution is required to purify the corrupt atmo¬ 
sphere of cities, by driving out worthless, dissipated young 
men, and giving their places to worthy young women. How 
many delicate stomachs are scantily supplied, and lungs de¬ 
stroyed for want of wholesome air to breathe, boxed up in 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


375 

lofts and stifled apartments, who would be excellent clerks and 
accountants. Let some philanthropist set the example of 
patronizing honest females instead of fast moral nuisances. 

If those puny, sallow, spindle-legged exquisites, whose 
greatest achievement is raising a moustache, were to change 
the society of inkstands for broad acres in the West, they 
would expand as much in mind as body, and, perhaps, lay a 
foundation for comfort, independence, and longevity, which 
are not within their grasp in the conflned circumstances to 
which their vocation limits them, especially when they riot in 
dissipations. 

Those feeble, sickly, neglected girls, in pestiferous lanes, 
narrow, dark streets, sunless houses, upstairs in sombre rooms, 
or cellar, should be assisted as they might be, and instructed 
to command better compensation for their services. 

Were loud-mouthed philanthropists more familiar with the 
painful condition of thousands of young women who might be 
elevated and directed in useful, remunerative pursuits, by 
half the attention bestowed upon institutions which do far 
more for those who have immediate charge of them than for 
their inmates, heaven would bless their efforts. 

How TO Proceed. 

First, qualify those neglected girls by sending them to com¬ 
mercial schools to learn bookkeeping; have them taught tele¬ 
graphy, how to conduct business in life-insurance offices, to be 
tellers in banks, accountants, designers, engravers, teachers of 
languages, musical instructors, have them taught the science of 
surveying ; and, finally, qualify them for positions always pre¬ 
senting, where they could do all that young men do in such 
relations as are indicated in this general scheme for usefulness, 


376 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


and even many more that might he particularized in this 
miscellaneous grouping of industries. 

Young girls, thus qualified, would sustain themselves with 
honor. And it will be conceded, they are far less predisposed 
to deteriorating vices than young men. 

They neither smoke, drink, nor gamble, visit race-courses, • 
organize boat-clubs, carouse through the night, or engage 
in any of those dissipations which lead to deceptions, breach 
of confidence, or expose them to the attacks of knaves or 
thieves 

Defalcations, absconding with funds of a patron, embezzle¬ 
ment of money in their care, forging notes, falsifying checks, 
etc., would not occur, as they now do, were young, women 
placed where they should be introduced. Their instincts and 
tendencies, even with no moral training, are always superior to 
men of the same social grade. They are naturally virtuous, 
honest, and sincere. 

Wherever a pen is in requisition, careful reckoning, exact 
computation, or an orderly attendance is an element of im¬ 
portance, a well-instructed woman is always equal, and in many 
trying circumstances, even superior to a man. 

It would be a splendid recognition of female ability to sus¬ 
tain responsible positions, were trustees of estates, directors, 
and other governing spirits in moneyed institutions, to exchange 
platoons of burly, rough, unpolished, uncivil, bewhiskered 
clerks, whose thoughts are more on whiskey and tobacco than 
on the interest of their employers, for an equal number of 
quiet, delicate, modest, neatly attired young women. They are 
much more deserving than any one imagines, who simply feels a 
woman is a sort of a fifth wheel of a coach, only to be cared for 
when it is impossible to do without her. 

They would be less expensive as clerks, and, as experience 



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THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


377 


would prove, perfectly reliable. Let those who are stockholders, 
and, indeed, any and all who would encourage the deserving, 
make the experiment. Their cash would he in safe keeping 
instead of being squandered in stock-jobbing speculations—so 
frequently practised by men anxious to turn another’s penny in 
haste to be rich. 

Compensation. 

Women should be paid for what they do as much as is given 
to men for the same service. If they accomplish just as much 
in a given time, and as satisfactorily as a being in pantaloons,^ 
why should they not have the same compensation ? 

It is disgraceful meanness for an employer to pay only one 
dollar to a woman, hecause she is a woman, for work in a 
printing-office, for example, for which a man gets three or four 
for precisely the same labor, just because he belongs to the 
masculine gender. 

A lame excuse for such unjust recom'pense is, that the 
clothing of females is less expensive than male garments,— 
and further, custom sanctions the scale of prices for labor. But 
both are frivolous and absurd apologies for doing unjustly. 

Whether their clothing costs less or more, is nothing to the 
point. They are justly entitled to what they earn. Their 
stomachs are as keen for a beefsteak as their competitors’ in 
full beards, who squander more in one evening at a bar-room 
than a female compositor could earn in a week at the present 
rate of compensation. * 

The chart of female employments has been under considera¬ 
tion for years. Excellent speeches have also been made, beau¬ 
tiful expressions have gone forth, redounding more to the praise 
of those that uttered them, than to the profit of those in whose 
behalf they were sent abroad. The poor, hard-working, poorly- 


378 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


paid girls have no more pudding than when nobody cared 
whether they lived in wretchedness, or died in a hovel. 

’ Pohtical equality and political suffrage for women, per¬ 
petually discussed topics with those who make capital for them¬ 
selves, under a pretence of being oppressed by the wrongs of 
women, have not yet bettered the condition of the class for 
whom their sound, but not their substance, has been given. 

Political hypocrites and professional philanthropists are 
leeches, subsisting on what they get out of the people by excit¬ 
ing their sympathy. 

After ages may regulate conflicting claims, and settle diffi¬ 
cult problems in regard to labor, but it will be a long while 
before the poor will be made happy by philanthropic resolu¬ 
tions at anniversary meetings, where there are vice-presidents 
enough to freight a steamboat, but no substantial assistance for 
the ostensible objects of their overflowing benevolence of words. 

We are contemplating the present period; but when the cry 
of the oppressed goes up to the court of Heaven, where records 
are truly kept, the claims of that large class, whose misfortunes 
are the text in this sermon, will be adjudicated, and their 
wrongs righted. 

Ho objections are entertained against any system of instruc¬ 
tion which enlarges the domain of female knowledge, or that 
qualifies them to act in any capacity in which men ought not to 
act, while there is an excess of female population. 

Parents are bound to pursue a course, in the education of 
daughters, that promises best for their success in honorable 
industry. 


What Pabents should Do. 

There is neither radicalism nor sectarianism in this. When 
fathers and mothers cannot lay aside property for their children, 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 0^9 

in tliis land of free schools, they can qualify them to provide for 
themselves. 

Gloomy pictures might he drawn, illustrative of the degra¬ 
dation of women in over-crowded cities, and the vicious lives 
some are forced to lead, or die of starvation, from which they 
would joyfully escape if they could. Life or death are solemn 
sounds to a shrinking, timid girl, fashioned in the form of an 
angel, famished in the sight of plenty of which she cannot taste. 

Police courts, jails, penitentiaries, and reformatories present 
sickening statistics of perverted powers, and wrecks of beauty 
in sloughs of despondency, that could have been saved to adorn 
society, had they been cared for by those who, from their posi¬ 
tion, might and should have taken them by the hand. But it 
is too much of a sacrifice for some exceedingly good persons to 
step out of their way to save a saint. 

Books need not be consulted, bloody tragedies cited, per¬ 
sonal narrations, or painful scenes of misery sought, to strengthen 
the appeal we are making. 

In pagan and Mohammedan countries women have no such 
unhappiness as is admitted to be common in Christian lands. 
They have homes in harems which are sacred, under the protec¬ 
tion of brutes in the form of men ; but they are never outcasts 
on the street, seeking like starved beasts of prey whom they 
may devour. 

We speak of them as pitiable objects, ignorant of their 
rights as human beings to equal privileges, and the same social 
status, exclusively in the possession of their proprietors, for they 
are contemplated as property. 

With such degradation, however, there are no brothels,— 
none of that wickedness which is a reproach to civilization, and 
a curse where women are denied those rights which fiow from 
fountains of justice. 


380 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. * 


'VVe beg to nrge upon those who may begin to reflect anew 
upon this'subject, to assist according to their pecuniary ability 
in qualifying intelligent young women for something that will 
bring them a proper and just reward for their industry, more 
than what they can earn with a needle. 

Give them opportunities for acquiring French, German, 
Spanish, and other languages, and assist them to positions in 
telegraph stations, where they could make those languages of 
the flrst importance for business correspondence. They ought 
to be, and it is believed they would prove the best, most accur¬ 
ate, and always punctual operators. 

Boston, Portland, Hartford, Hew York, Philadelphia, Bal¬ 
timore, Washington, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Hew Orleans, etc., 
etc., would give ample employment for thousands of such 
accomplished telegraphers as they might be, if public sentiment 
were enlisted in their favor. 

By opening such avenues as have thus far been closed to 
them, and by it, virtually compelling young men to enter upon 
more appropriate pursuits than weighing out tea by the pound, 
or selling pins and needles, a gratifying change would come 
over the land. Bread would be cheaper. 

We are hoping that phonography, telegraphy, drawing, 
designing, engraving, and many other useful arts, may be 
taught in all well-conducted country schools, expressly for 
qualifying girls in those remunerative branches of industry. 

Give young women who may be dependent on their per¬ 
sonal efforts, a knowledge of the art or science for which they 
have a decided preference. If philanthropists will give their 
support in that direction, health, happiness, and independence 
will crown their efforts. 


CHAPTER XXXIL 


Acquiring Languages. 

Capacity for Certain Pursuits—Waste of Life—Foreign Dialects—We are 
Called a One-tongued People—How to Acquire a Language—Dogs 
Learn the Meaning of Words—Curious Facts—Qualifications for Tele¬ 
graphing. 

There are persons who have a faculty for making more 
rapid progress than others in mastering a new language. It is 
familiar to those wholly ignorant of the science of phrenology, 
that there is a singular difference among persons of the same 
age, position, and opportunities, in acquiring specific or general 
knowledge. 

It would he ridiculous to assert that one hoy may become 
just as expert as another in figures or some kind of handicraft, 
under precisely the same instruction. One will learn Latin or 
French rapidly, which his companion at the same desk, with the 
same facilities, cannot acquire so readily under precisely the 
same training. 

Some have an intuitive perception, where others, of equal 
intelligence, cannot make satisfactory progress. 

There are natural mathematicians, as there are, also, natural 
linguists. Memory is differently manifested, • since some 
persons remember certain things better than others. One 
cannot recall names of places or men, yet there is a distinct re¬ 
collection of faces and peculiarities of each. 

By this curious difference in the arrangement of cerebral 


882 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


matter, there is a man and woman precisely fitted for every 
imaginable place. 

That peculiarity is acknowledged at the temple-door of 
philosophy. Thus every shade of mental development is recog¬ 
nized, and, as no two are alike, there is a brain to meet every 
condition and all circumstances in the management of a 
world. 

There is an unquestionable difference in the structure of 
human brains. Though apparently alike in their general con¬ 
figuration, in the materials of which they are formed, and in 
the manner, too, of circulating the blood through the mass, the 
arrangement of the atoms of which the cerebrum is constructed, 
is infinitely varied. 

Different races of men differ essentially in mental force. 
Size, of course, has to be considered in a search for a reason why 
one brain is more powerful in resources than another. There 
are walking polyglots, but far more are incapable of speaking 
their mother tongue grammatically. 

If certain convolutions of the brain are more prominent than 
others, according to the teachings of those who laiow nothing 
about the subject, they are charged with force corresponding to 
their development. About thirty protuberances are marked on 
charts, which the disciples of Gall and Spurzheim recognized as 
locations of distinct faculties. • 

If a ganglionic elevation happens to be the organ of lan¬ 
guage, and has been better nourished, or rather more frequently 
excited than its neighbors, it will give evidence of its superior¬ 
ity ; while twenty-nine are feeble or embryotic. 

We need not consult authors to facilitate progress in acquir¬ 
ing a new language. Men, women, and children are constantly 
met who have the faculty of articulating many languages flu¬ 
ently, who can neither read nor write. It is curious that re- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


383 


markable linguistic scholars rarely contribute much to the fund 
of general literature. 

Certain conditions are thought to be essential in learning to 
speak a new language; but experience and observation show, 
very positively, that under even unfavorable circumstances, as 
they would be estimated by scholars, little children on the 
frontiers of Germany, France, Poland, Pussia, Italy, etc., where 
there is a meeting, as it were, of strange tongues, are perfectly 
fluent in four, flve, and even in six modem languages, yet 
wholly unable to read or write either of them. 

There is no marvel in all this. They are so located that 
they cannot avoid having their ears saluted quite as frequently 
with foreign w^ords as their own. ISTeither effort, study, ex¬ 
ercises, or recitations, are ever brought to their assistance. 


Education of the Ear. 

The ear is an avenue through which linguistic development 
is accomplished, and not by the study of books, or recitations of 
authorized lessons of grammarians. 

Such is the commercial intercourse of one part of the busi¬ 
ness world with another, there is a positive necessity for one 
language, at least, besides our own. Great transactions with 
foreign nations could not be conducted with any kind of facility 
without the assistance of those who understand the meaning and 
intentions of both parties, if neither understood the language of 
the other. 

Progress in literature, science, art, and mechanism, would 
be extremely circumscribed, and conflned to narrow boundaries, 
were it not for scholars who change one language into another, 
and thus put readers in communication with all mankind. 

The people of the United States are regarded as a one- 


384 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


tongued population. Millions of foreigners, representatives of 
every power in Europe, are interspersed througli the land, but 
they are compelled to acquire English, or pass a lonely pilgrim¬ 
age without conversational intercourse. 

We rarely give ourselves the trouble to learn the language 
of new-comers from abroad. If they desire a social acquaint¬ 
ance, they must blunder on for several years in order to pro¬ 
nounce the shiUboleih aright. They are under the painful neces¬ 
sity of dropping their mother tongue. We, on the contrary, give 
ourselves no concern in regard to their embarrassment in at¬ 
tempting to comprehend or articulate what is so familiar to. 
ourselves. If they ultimately succeed in gaining an imperfect 
command of new words, it is about all those who constitute the 
majority of Germans, Danes, Swedes, French, etc., achieve. 
Where enough of any of them happen to constitute a little 
community of their own, then they hardly give themselves any 
anxiety about mastering the elements of English. 

Several communities thus constituted have so multiplied at 
the West, that their schools, and even newspapers, are conducted 
in their native language. This circumstance has obliged legis¬ 
latures in several States to publish their laws in several lan¬ 
guages, that they may not be in ignorance of the way their 
rights and privileges are maintained and secured. 

Moke than one Language. 

Educational preparation for the active scenes of life, for 
which youth ought to be qualified, should include a conversa¬ 
tional knowledge of the most important living languages. 
French and German have the first claim. With these and 
English, we can hold intimate intercourse with about all 
Europe. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


385 


It is a sad waste of precious hours of a college student’s 
life, to be drilling years before and after entering the institu¬ 
tion, in languages which are dead. They are accomplishments, 
but not necessities. One is a language that has not been 
spoken for nearly two thousand years, nor will it ever be 
revived. 

No objection is offered to their perpetuity. 

One or two terms in the course of a college residence, de¬ 
voted to living languages,—taught so that they could be spoken 
fluently,—would be of incalculable importance to the individual 
in all the after years of life. Latin and Greek are drilled into 
boys for one or two years at a cost far exceeding the expense 
of teachers of a living language, to qualify them for passing 
an examination to become freshmen. After that crisis has 
passed, very little does any one care for Greek or Latin, unless 
they are designed for instructors in these departments. There¬ 
fore, the expense and time are deplorable losses. 

Value of Living Languages. 

It is becoming a question of interest among distinguished 
writers on education, whether some revolution is not required 
in elementary preparation for the world in which we live, of 
more value to the pupil than Greek and Latin — would not 
living languages be more useful than obsolete ones ? 

A flnishing process in a young lady’s education is music 
and French. Schools exist on a reputation for polishing misses 
in those two much-prized accomplishments. Not to be sup¬ 
posed familiar with both, would be equivalent to being very 
imperfectly educated. 

Young ladies, presumed to have had the best advantages, 
are usually taught French by instructors who cannot articulate 

25 


386 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


a sentence that would not shock a French tailor. Session after 
session at an expensively fashionable boarding-school, they are 
supposed to acquire exact and, indeed, intimate knowledge of 
idiomatic French; but not one in fifty knows anything about it 
beyond reading understandingly to themselves. They cannot 
pronounce it; nor dare the best of them hazard the experiment 
in the presence of a French chambermaid for fear of exciting 
ridicule. 

. As that language is too generally taught in female educa¬ 
tional institutions throughout the country, it is a lamentable 
loss of time for pupils. The teacher as often as otherwise is a 
lady not much further advanced in the mysteries of accent 
than those she is drilling. 

Where to Learn Languages. 

Foreign languages are taught in cities very acceptably by 
those who come from Europe, who speak their native language 
far better than those who have acquired them second-hand 
through professors who could not make themselves understood 
in a baker’s shop in any tongue but their own, were they starv¬ 
ing for a slice of bread. 

Indulgent parents expend money freely for their daughters, 
—^but it is a poor method of giving them a conversational famil¬ 
iarity with French,—in country boarding-schools. 

Instead of keeping a young lady in school for that particu¬ 
lar accomplishment, French, German or Italian, place her at 
once in a respectable, cultivated French .family, or with a Ger¬ 
man or Italian household. 

For example, place a young miss, in a family at Montreal or 
Quebec, in which French is spoken exclusively. Or, if the ex¬ 
pense is no object, send her to France. Ho instruction would 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


387 


be required, unless it were particularly desirable to hasten the 
process. Simply being in a family is sufficient. 

There need be neither plodding in primary books, recita¬ 
tions or any instruction whatever. In an incredibly short time 
her ears would become familiarized to new sounds. Children 
are more ready than adults, placed under such circumstances, 
in acquiring the meaning and accent of words. 

While boys are drudging at tasks in Greek and Latin, not 
essential, they could have a complete acquaintance with two or 
three living languages, of infinitely more value to them. 

In all after periods of life one or two languages in addition 
to their own would be a thousand times more important to 
them than a critical familiarity with the orations of Cicero. 

There would be less brain labor in this method than imper¬ 
fectly understanding ancient classics, and bo^^-s would be quali¬ 
fied for sustaining commercial relations all over the world, 
while the best Latinist in Christendom could not buy a paper of 
pins, were he to ask for them in that scholarly language. 

• 

. Foreign Officials. 

Our ambassadors, consuls, and commercial agents, sent 
abroad to represent the dignity of this government, protect our 
citizens and their interests, have often been the laughing-stock 
of those among whom they resided, on account of their stupid 
ignorance of all language but their own, which they not unfre- 
quently barbarously murder. 

American consuls have sometimes been spoken of as so illit¬ 
erate as to be incapable of speaking English grammatically. 
Their appointment have not always been on account of eminent 
qualifications. If it is true political services are ever paid for 
in that ^^y, as compensation for aiding in the election of a 


388 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


rampant partisan to Congress, it is liigli time the Civil Service 
Law should l^e enforced. 

Government makes a mortifying mistake in ever commis¬ 
sioning foreigners to consular stations. When the native stock 
has been exhausted, there will be a reasonable excuse for crav¬ 
ing the assistance of men who were never on this continent who 
do not understand its usages or laws. Travelers cannot conceal 
their disgust at this kind of patronage. A profuse exhibition 
of brass buttons, with the stars and stripes waving over empty 
heads on the shoulders of official nohodies, who would not be 
invited to dine with a cobbler in any country, are no credit to a 
great nation of freemen. 

Every consul should be qualified and write the language of 
the country where he is stationed. All the higher grades of 
official representatives should be educationally qualified for 
their positions. Ministers plenipotentiary at the principal 
courts with which we hold intimate diplomatic relations, have 
not been a whit better qualified than their servants in many 
instances. Clerks and attaches have transacted all business, 
while the great man takes the salary and does the official din¬ 
ing, to be laughed at behind his back. 

Teaching Feench and German in Schools. 

Were French and’ German regularly and systematically 
taught, like other more common but necessary studies in district 
schools for both sexes, the national character would stand on a 
higher level, whenever those who have had educational advan¬ 
tages in them are required to serve where such languages are 
spoken. 

Every faculty of the mind should be cultivated, and no one 
of them permitted to lie dormant in these stirring times, when 
knowledge is power. 


THE WAYS OP WOMEN. 


389 


Strange faces, new institutions, and new places, -differing 
from those to which we are accustomed, make vivid impressions 
at first, but they gradually become familiar. So it is in respect 
to a new language. It sounds harshly, and may be difficult to 
articulate, is fearfully guttural, or, perhaps, worse to compre¬ 
hend, even under the best facilities for instruction; but, as the 
bar begins to be less severely taxed in catchfing the new vibra¬ 
tions, difficulties melt away. 

When a few words are understood, the way is soon made 
easier for more. By and by a sentence can be articulated. 
Before half the anticipated obstacles have been overcome, we 
begin to chat readily. 

Germans, Swedes, Danes, Poles, Frenchmen, etc., who did 
not kuow a word of English when they landed in America, soon 
acquire it sufficiently for all the practical purposes of business 
and social intercourse. We, however, rarely learn anything of 
their language in their way of learning. 

Little children are delightful assistants when a person is 
under lingual discipline. They prattle away perpetually, un¬ 
hesitatingly, and, therefore, give important aid to a beginner. 
A family in which there are small children should have a 
decided preference over one where there are none, in selecting 
a home, where the main object is to be within the hearing of 
the language which it is proposed to acquire. 

Adults are very reserved, fearing to speak, lest they 
should subject themselves to the critical observations of those 
who might make merry over their blunders. They hesi¬ 
tate to ask questions when they very much desire to do so, 
for fear of being considered troublesome, or particularly 
stupid. 

“ ISTo person, especially those quite young, could be in a 
family of French or Germans, for example, six months, and not 


390 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


make considerable progress, without having had a single lesson 
given them. 

Indian prisoners at the West, wandering about at the mercy 
of their savage captors, very soon begin to comprehend the 
meaning of their uncouth gutturals, and discover their views in 
regard to their cruel intentions. 

Accuracy of expression could not be ex;fected, certainly nof 
attained, without considerable practice, since perfection of articu¬ 
lation must result from long practice. 

Children learn to speak without instruction. What can they 
know of the laws of syntax ? They lisp their crude thoughts 
with charming freedom, years before they are taught the ele¬ 
ments of grammar. That appropriately comes into play as 
they approach their teens. 

Language oe Animals. 

Dogs certainly understand the import of words, or they 
could not so readily obey their masters. Their capacity for 
language is far above that of cats. Puss must see a morsel of 
meat or a cup of milk, to gain her friendly attentions. She 
may be frightened, but not with harsh expressions, unless 
accompanied by muscular gesticulations, when away she runs 
from impending danger. 

Dogs, on the contrary, possess a higher cerebral develop¬ 
ment. They often acquire a general knowledge of two and 
three languages, according to their advantages. It is not to be 
supposed there is any particular effort on their part, or ambi¬ 
tion, to remember the exact sense of an articulate sound. 

A repetition of words and sentences, as heard in the family 
where different languages are habitually spoken, ultimately 
fixes an impression. Finally, they associate certain acts with 
certain words or commands. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


391 


There are dogs almost everywhere, trained to carry and 
bring letters from the post-office, visit the market with a basket 
for the famil}^ dinner, stand gnard through the night, and carry 
notes at the bidding of the proprietor. They actually learn to 
obey different members of the household who may direct or 
command them in French, German, Spanish, etc., as they are 
spoken indifferently in the establishment. 

Not long since a pet dog was brought to New York from 
Naples, whose intelligence was extraordinary. When directed 
to engage in certain performances, in Italian, he promptly 
obeyed; but when addressed in English, the poor fellow was 
amazingly perplexed. After a while it was apparent he had 
mastered the meaning of a new language, to a certain extent, 
which was manifested with signs of gratification. 

Vulgar dogs, like parrots, gain a knowledge of a few slang 
phrases, becoming embarrassed when addressed in terms un¬ 
connected with towering expletives. Donkeys and mules, 
usually regarded as the embodiment of stupidity, evince a 
nice perception of articulate sounds. 

There are many places in Louisiana where' those shabbily- 
treated animals in harness readily obey orders given in three 
different languages, as either happens to be used by their 
drivers. Those dumb beasts prick up their long ears in 
surprise, evidently indicating perplexity, when a strange man 
takes the reins, speaking a new language to them. 

Even oxen, dull and unobserving as they seem to be, listen 
attentively to what is said particularly to themselves while in 
the yoke. Haw and gee^ equivalent to right and left, are as 
perfectly understood by trained oxen as by the teamster. Bade, 
is another command which an infant might pronounce with 
equal certainty of having it executed. Horses in bakers’ carts, 
market nags, and milkmen’s teams, not only know precisely 


392 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


what the driver bids them do, but they also know the exact 
residence of customers. 

A Vermont farmer is reputed to have borrowed of a French 
neighbor, across the line, the use of an ox for a day, to take 
the place of a sick one. The stranger from Her Majesty’s 
dominion could not respond to the bidding of the Yankee, be¬ 
cause he jcould not understand him, although evincing a perfect 
willingness to pull or turn as his mate indicated. With the 
best intentions, however, the unmated cattle were constantly 
committing blunders, to the dismay of the citizen of the repub¬ 
lic. Towards evening, in crossing a railroad track as a train 
was approaching, they were urged to make haste by boisterous 
vociferations, which quickened the speed of the Vermont ox, 
but the other, not understanding the loud tones, gazed about 
with glaring eyes, in view of impending destruction, not know¬ 
ing which way to move, and, in that instant of hesitation and 
doubt, was crushed to death by the locomotive, and thus died 
dramatically, in consequence of not knowing the English 
language. 

Address any of the domesticated animals, accustomed to 
the sound of human voices, and there is no doubt respecting 
the fact that they attach a meaning to what they hear, to a 
limited extent. That is particularly noticeable in menageries. 
There they become cognizant of the expressions of their 
keepers. 

They learn their ways, analyze their character for kindness, 
and govern themselves accordingly. So accurately do dogs and 
cats discriminate a good disposition from a morose, severe, un¬ 
sympathetic person, that they walk boldly to some for caresses, 
or avoid others with marked exhibitions of dislike. 

Seals gather a distinct meaning of words in their captivity, 
with a keeper who is regularly in attendance. A change of 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


393 


superintendent leads to sorrowful moanings. Bj speaking 
slowly and distinctly to them, their full, intelligent eyes sparkle 
with evident delight. 

Anecdotes, without limitation, are interspersed in works on 
natural history, illustrative of the capacity of animals for 
gathering a knowledge of words. Birds certainly converse with 
one another when preparing for a migratory excursion. They 
then congregate in multitude’s, and apparently deliberate* in 
council. If the chattering means anything, it would seem to 
relate to the proposed removal to another climate. 

If they have no intelligence, and their sagacity is without 
thought, the force of instinct which compels them to act 
without the exercise of volition,—how does it happen that such 
armies of feathered races move with a precision, varying by 
incidental circumstances, as though they had both a present and 
future object in view ? 

Parrots articulate phrases they have heard, without attach¬ 
ing any sense to them. Their power of imitating vocal sounds is 
surprising. When once familiarized to a routine of expressions, 
they repeat them, but without reference ’to their appropriate¬ 
ness to the occasion. They have not a brain for carrying on a 
train of thought. Mocking-birds are extraordinary imitators. 
They are extremely jolly and frolicsome over the confusion 
they create among other birds. Dogs are far superior to most 
animals, from the circumstance th,at they retain cerebral impres¬ 
sions, which are recalled for the execution of after acts.* A 
Highland shepherd bids his dog find a missing sheep. Away he 
scampers in earnest search for it, keeping distinctly in mind 
what is expected of him. He never can be taught to speak, be¬ 
cause he has nothing to say, although he thinks accurately in 
the line of his special vocation. Having no sphincter muscle 

to the mouth, labial sounds are impossible. 

25 * 


394 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Monkeys have a vocal apparatus so nearlj^ resembling our 
own, that it would puzzle a practical anatomist to designate one 
from the other, if of the same size, when detached from the 
body. They have vocal cords, well-formed lips, and nerves 
directed precisely as in the nervous system of the most inveter¬ 
ate talker, yet a monkey has never been heard to pronounce a 
syllable. While a whip is held over his head, he performs sur¬ 
prising tricks, rides in a circus, goes through manual exercises 
with a miniature gun, plays a tambourine, collects pennies, etc., 
but, with all these accomplishments, he never voluntarily prac¬ 
tises them when left alone, hlcither does he attempt speaking. 
Their chattering is always the same, whether expressing 
pleasure or pain. • 

There are remarkable accounts of dogs, which fully demon¬ 
strate their reasoning powers to an extent bordering on the 
marvellous. Seeing and hearing are special senses, which are 
exceedingly developed in them, and through which their know¬ 
ledge is very accurate. A law of limitation puts a stop to 
mental progress with animals, as it does in respect to their 
growth. It is quite impossible to educate beyond a certain point, 
because the instruments for carrying on the operation of think¬ 
ing are insufficient, either in their number, weight, or structure. 

By associating with persons of mild manners, wdio pet and 
praise them with kind expressions, some dogs make extraordi¬ 
nary advances. Their canine^ exploits may be carried so far as 
to excite both admiration and surprise. Such performers exert, 
themselves under the stimulus of praise, or unmistakably exhibit 
dejection and mortification when roughly reprimanded. 

Some years ago a noble Newfoundland dog, owned by the 
city of Boston, was kept at the quarantine ground, Eainsford 
Island, in the capacity of a general watchman. Tiger lived to 
about the age of twenty years. In that long life-lease, he had 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


395 


acquired a very correct estimate of men and manners. He was 
deferential to masters of vess^ and well-dressed passengers 
when they came on shore, but if sailors left their boat to wander 
over the premises, he became demonstrative. They had to run 
rapidly back to the landing, or feel the effects of Tiger’s indig¬ 
nation. 

Such was Tiger’s ambition to be in good society, that he 
was invariably on hand to accompany the doctor in his barge 
when .visiting vessels. On account of his prodigious size and 
imposing aspect, he was usually an object of particular atten¬ 
tion, and had excellent bits of meat dropped over the gunwale 
into the boat, while his master was transacting business in the 
cabin. 

So favorably impressed was that sagacious quadruped with 
the attentions he received alongside, he occasionally swam back 
and made a call on his own account. On seeing him paddling 
around the hull, if a rope were thrown over, he held fast to i': 
with mighty strong jaws, and was thus hauled on board, to the 
im;?iense gratification of the crew, and no less gratification of 
the visitor. After being feasted heartily, and wagging hig long, 
bushy tail to those who had bestowed the grub, in a twinkling 
of an eye he would leap overboard and strike for land. 

Ho efforts were successful in coaxing him back. On several 
occasions a plot was laid to capture him, but watching an 
opportunity, as though perfectly understanding the convesra- 
tion respecting his detention, he gave the sailors the slip by 
plunging into the surging waves, through which he quickly 
worked his way to the nearest beach. 

In consequence of repeated exposures in aquatic adventures, 
of which he was exceedingly fond, together with the infirmities 
incident to age. Tiger suffered severely with earache. The 
doctor’s lady used to make hot poultices, heat bricks, folded in 


396 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


soft cloths, etc., and when ready, she would tell him to take 
position. He would instantly horizontalize himself under a 
table, patiently submitting to a satisfactory adjustment of 
madam’s applications. 

The transition from pain to perfect relief was never for¬ 
gotten. Whenever he had a recurrence of the old torment, he 
regularly whined in an ineffable tone, and shook his head, which 
was an indication of wanting the kind lady’s assistance. It was 
a curious spectacle to witness his impatience for the brick to 
heat. Bracing himself in a corner, he would look steadfastly at 
the red-hot coals till it was taken out, and his mistress an¬ 
nounced all ready. 

So warmly attached was that sagacious old dog to his bene¬ 
factress, that he became evidently jealous of attentions shown 
by persons who did not come up to his standard of respectability. 
When she stepped from a boat he invariably sprang for the 
painter, holding it with tenacity till his friend was fairly on dry 
ground. If one of the bargemen attempted to take the rope 
away, there was a growl and show of white teeth, that fore¬ 
shadowed displeasure at interfering with his gallantry. When 
the lady was quite safely landed, then the painter was dropped, 
and Mr. Tiger trudged along by her side, as though conscious 
of having done his duty. 

By way of experiment, to ascertain the exact extent of that 
splendid brute’s appreciation of language, on the return of the 
doctor from the city, madam related to him that during his 
absence Tiger had not behaved well: he had disobeyed her, or 
had been over to the hospital and eaten up a patient’s dinner. 

Such conversation seemed to produce profound sleep, or if 
he saw that facial expi-essions were assuming an unfavorable 
change, he stole away behind a piece of furniture. By tacking 
ship, however, and praising his fidelity,—recounting his feats 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


397 


and good qualities, the old fellow’s organ of approbativeness 
brought him bolt to his feet. He was delighted with flattery, 
and overwhelmed his good friend with affectionate demonstra¬ 
tions of regard. 

A lady in Hew York converses with her Hewfoundland as 
with one of her servants. When she says to him, “ You may 
go with John to market,” he capers frantically with anticipa¬ 
tions of pleasure, because he is quite sure of flne picking among 
the stalls where he has a host of friends. He goes to the 
kitchen for a basket, and returns with it for money from his 
mistress. He then trots off with it through densely crowded 
streets, safely. His vanity is his weakest point, putting him¬ 
self at considerable inconvenience for a compliment. 

These citations of brute intelligence are digressions, but they 
belong to that catalogue of evidences which are numerous and 
convincing, that animals, from canary birds to elephants, in the 
society of man, unquestionably acquire an elementary know¬ 
ledge of the true meaning of words. 

HoW absurd then to pretend that a human being, with a 
great brain, superior in volume to that of all races below him, 
cannot master more than one language, while donkeys, mules, 
horses, dogs, elephants, oxen, seals, and even mice and canary 
birds, gather an elementary knowledge of two or three, without 
being able to articulate any! 

. Systematic Persevekance. 

By a very moderate amount of systematic industry, perse- 
veringly continued at leisure moments, any woman may attain 
a speaking knowledge of one or two languages in addition to 
her own vernacular. 

William Cobbett, alone, without an instructor, became a 


398 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


critical French scholar. He even wrote an excellent grammar 
of the language, still in repute. Dr. Franklin acquired French 
wdien he was about seventy years old, which shows wliat may be 
achieved where there is a will. Such are encouraging examples, 
showing, beyond question, that it is never too late to learn. 

Hev. Mr. Jones, chaplain of the Sailor’s Snug Harbor, stated 
in a public meeting, in Hew York, that in a company of one 
hundred and thirty-seven seamen, at his house, they spoke among 
them thirty-seven languages fluently. Several conversed freely 
in four; one or two in five; and one, a native of Finland, spoke 
ten, and wrote seven of them correctly,—one being Latin. 

Du Chaillu, the African traveller, stated before the Geo¬ 
graphical Society of Hew York, giving an account of his wan¬ 
dering in Denmark, Sweden, Horway, and Finland, that there 
is not a girl in those countries sixteen years old, even in the re¬ 
motest cabins of Lapland, who could not converse readily in 
English, French, and German, besides their own severely harsh 
dialect. 

That statement made a deep impression on a highly culti¬ 
vated audience. The whole mystery of such proficiency was 
explained. Every school, from the primary to the highest, in 
those countries, is by law obliged to teach children three neces¬ 
sary languages, the government having the good sense to ap¬ 
preciate the value of the principal languages of civilized coun¬ 
tries, the knowledge of which qualifies the people to transact 
business with the. ruling nations of the earth. 

There is no labored efl’ort on the part of the children, no 
extraordinary exertion by the teachers, to bring about such 
proud results. It is simply a gradual process like any other 
study deemed useful for youth. Eeally, no child is conscious 
of any particular efibrt, but, as a matter of course, they insen¬ 
sibly become accomplished linguists. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


399 


Just such a system should he pursued in all common schools 
in this country. It would be attended with no more expense 
than at present, with arithmetic, grammar, and other element¬ 
ary branches. Every little girl and boy, beginning with their 
(7, might speak and read French, German, and English in 
the same time they are acquiring any and all of those things 
which make up a common school education. 

Let this admirable course be adopted, and in twenty years 
we should outgrow the taunt flung in the faces of American 
scholars, that we are a one-tongued people. 

Law and medical students, theological also ; clerks, and in¬ 
deed others associated with commercial, banking, and various 
kinds of activities requiring skill, tact, and accomplishments, too, 
in their pursuits, have no apology for being so universally ig¬ 
norant of foreign languages. 

By subjecting themselves to a few inconveniences, and 
taking up a residence in families where a language is exclusively 
spoken which they wish to acquire, medical, law, theological 
students, and clerks, might soon speak another language with¬ 
out infringing upon business hours or cost of tuition. 

The same course would accomplish any young lady, if not 
in a condition to pursue the other plan proposed, by going to 
Canada or France. 


Examples of Success. 

Let the organs of hearing be educated. That is the all-im¬ 
portant beginning. 

A l^ew^ York lady practising upon this system of keeping 
the ear familiarized with French, Spanish, Italian, Gerjnan, and 
Portuguese, has a servant representing each language, for the 
sake of being obliged to converse with each one in his or her own 


400 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


language. Her house, therefore, is a modem Babel, the mistress 
being a ready interpreter in many dialects. 

A gentleman went to France a short time since with an 
accomplished daughter of whom he was exceedingly proud. As 
the vessel was entering the port' of Havre, a passenger asked 
the father of the young lady if he intended to take a courier 
into service on landing. 

“ Ho, sir,” he replied. “ My daughter has been expensively 
educated in French. She understands it like a book, and I 
intend she shall be my interpreter on our travels.” 

Yery soon after this conversation a pilot and revenue officer 
came on board. Marching up to the American millionail’e,— 
sputtering at a rapid rate,—he quite confounded the old gen¬ 
tleman with his volubility. Turning towards *the blooming 
daughter, “ Find out,” said he, “ what these fellows want.” 

She was respectfully approached by the new comers, who 
stated their object in choice French, but to her inexpressible 
confusion, she could not understand a single word. ’ The father’s 
mortification could not be concealed. He had boasted so much, 
of her acquiremen.ts, and the money lavished on her French 
education in one of the most expensive boarding-schools, both 
exhibited fallen crests, as most of the passengers were expecting 
very gratifying assistance from that source. 

The young lady had a thorough reading knowledge of 
French, far superior, no doubt, to those who had unwittingly 
brought her into such a mortifying dilemma. But her ear had 
been neglected, as it always is in those fashionable institutions. 

Had she been placed in any French family ten months as a 
mere boarder, without taking a single lesson, and in no way 
interfering with other essential studies or social relations, she 
would have spoken French conversationally with ease and 
fluency. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


401 


Avenues to Industey. 

A man who speaks two languages, sajs a proverb, is equal 
to two men, and a woman who can do it is equal to half a 
dozen. 

New routes to useful pursuits are laid open hj the aid of a 
second language. It is an extra key for unlocking a cabinet of 
treasures. 

Young persons should be ambitious to possess that adyan- 
tage. Population is rapidly increasing, consequently the strife 
for place and position is becoming more active. Without a 
speaking acquaintance with at least one more language in addi- 
to her own, a young lady is not equal to the responsibilities of 
positions she might desire to occupy. 

Telegraphic interests in the future will require linguists, 
and so will mercantile houses, banks, and insurance offices, far 
beyond what may have been anticipated. Such operators will 
be in request, so extended are the enterprises of nations since 
the utilization of steam and electricity. 

Young women would be admirable at the wires, and a hope 
is entertained they may have almost a monopoly of telegraph 
stations. Therefore, let them seasonably qualify themselves for 
those useful, appropriate, and remunerative services. 

Drive the pale, thin, feminine-looking clerks out of easy- 
chairs in banks, insurance offices, treasuries, public bureaus, 
where honesty and faithfulness are the first requisite qualifica¬ 
tion, to cultivate the soil. It would be doing them a personal 
kindness. In becoming strong, hardy, brave, and enterprising 
in the field, food would be cheaper, and the race improve 

physically, morally, and mentally. 

26 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 


WOMEK IN' THE PkOFESSIOHS. 

Not Forcible Public Speakers before Large Audiences—Physical Reason— 

Make Good Professors—Female Physicians a Success—Admirable Artists 

—Approved Teachers of Various Branches of Education—Should be 

Encouraged. 

Some women, unfortunately for themselves, assume un¬ 
natural positions. In a pulpit they appear out of place. They 
may become learned theologians, write with fervor, hut in 
standing before an audience, however animated by zeal, or 
eminent in qualifications, their vocal powers are not equal to 
such occasions^ 

The larynx is smaller than in men; therefore there is a 
physical inability for giving strength to the voice required for 
being distinctly heard in large halls or churches, the timbre not 
being of the quality for ringing through great assemblies. 

There is a vast difference between singing and speaking. 
The first is appreciable as- a musical tone in them, heard dis¬ 
tinctly and widely; but when they attempt giving sonorous 
weight to the voice, in the manner of commanding orators, the 
failure is apparent. 

The cartilages of the vocal box remain flexible in females 
through life. In men, on the contrary, when they arrive at 
puberty, they become bony, and the voice changes from the vox 
rauca of a boy to a manly timbre. 

By that organic alteration in the plates of the larynx, there 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


403 


is a vibratory impulse given to the vocal current, set in motion 
by the vocal cords, more intense than before. hTo such change 
takes place in the female larynx. 

Again, the nasal cavities, the frontal and maxillary sinuses 
are far niore developed in men than women. They are to the 
voice what the body of a bass viol is to the strings—as proven 
by an inflammation which closes them. A vulgar explanation 
of an alteration of voice is imputed to speaking through the 
nose, in case of a severe cold, whereas a true state of the case 
is, that they do not have the assistance of the nose in giving 
volume and distinctness to articulate sounds. 

Adam’s Apple. 

Within the protuberance in front of the throat, midway be¬ 
tween the chin and root of the neck, is a triangular box, in 
which ribbon-like cords are stretched from wall to wall, that 
vibrate by the rush of air, inhaled or expired, passing over their 
tense edges. 

Before puberty the voice of boys is like that of females. They 
are employed in church choirs, while thus stationary in their 
vocal apparatus. On emerging from that state into perfect 
manhood, a change of voice announces what has taken place. 
The female voice, however, remains always the same, since an 
evolution from girlhood to womanhood brings no parallel 
alteration in the larynx or nasal cavities. That organ neither 
enlarges nor ossifies. 

ITeither sinuses or nasal cavities are ever as large in females 
as in men. 

A natural conformation, therefore, in the vocal mechanism 
of the throat disqualifies females for producing a strong, 
sonorous sound. 


404 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


There are exceptional cases, in which some women are so 
mascnline in manner, voice, and acts, as to destroy those attri¬ 
butes which make them attractive, and their society sought for 
their refining influences and loveliness. 

At the bar, before juries, in halls of legislation, or, indeed, 
in large bodies, they could not compete with the deep, loud- 
sounding voice of a man in the meridian of his muscular 
power. 

By emasculation before puberty, the larynx remains station¬ 
ary. Its cartilaginous walls are ever after flexible as in females. 
Eunuchs, therefore, are employed in harems of the East as 
female guardians ; in choirs also, as singers, where women are 
not admissible. If emasculation is not performed till after 
puberty, the system being developed to its maximum of 
completeness, the voice remains at the timhre it had when it 
altered from the vox raitca. 


Pkofessokial Duties. 

As professors of departments in public institutions, colleges, 
seminaries of any order, where science or literature is taught, 
no great lung-force being required, females would be abun¬ 
dantly able to sustain such honorable positions. Demonstra¬ 
tions and illustrations would be within their scope. They could 
discharge all such duties with as much success, eclat, and appro¬ 
priateness as men, and far more acceptably and clearly than 
many stupid male professors, who are kept in such institutions 
through the influence of interested relatives, 

Yery many institutions of learning in this fair country are 
languishing. Their perpetual cry is for money. They annoy 
legislatures for pecuniary assistance. When it is obtained, it does 
not accomplish the great rescusitating results which were theo- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


405 


reticallj promised. The real secret of their feebleness is in 
the faculty, oftener than otherwise, who have neither tact, 
brains, nor qualifications for the chairs into which they were 
inducted. 

Ot all professions, however, that in which women succeed 
best, is in the practice of medicine. They have made the dis¬ 
covery themselves, that they possess aptitude for managing the 
sick. The public, too, in this government, and in many of the 
most polished and advanced governments of Europe, accept the 
proposition that they make excellent and eminently successful 
physicians. 

Medical colleges have been chartered, in all directions, for 
the special purpose of qualifying them, scientifically, to take 
upon themselves the responsibilities of tliat important pro¬ 
fession. 

A standing army of medical men have opposed the move¬ 
ment. They have thrown every imaginable obstacle in the 
way. Mot only have they refused to admit them as pupils 
into schools of medicine, but they have denounced and ridiculed 
those who have expressed sympathy for them in their desire to 
be medically educated. 

. That old saying, “ that the blood of the martyr is the seed 
of the church,’’ is particularly applicable in regard to female 
physicians. Intensified opposition has created college after 
college expressly for their benefit, and more will be chartered 
•and they will multiply. Some institutions abroad have been 
compelled by mandates of rulers to open their doors to them, 
in direct opposition to the remonstrances of medical practi¬ 
tioners. 

Probably there will be as many female medical students 
in the United States as male students, within the next fifty 
years. 


406 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Female Physicians. 

Communities have to be educated for the reception of 
whatever is useful. It is extremely difficult to convince the 
public that improvements are not innovations. The idea of a 
female physician was a novelty at first, and so strange too, as 
none but men were practitioners of medicine, it looked like 
overturning the constitutions of society when women were 
feeling pulses. 

But we become accustomed to revolutions. The novelty 
wore off, and next it was ascertained that their manner of inter¬ 
course with invalids, the delicacy of their approach, the care¬ 
fulness with which investigations were conducted, the accuracy 
of their analysis of symptoms, and their judgment in the ad¬ 
ministration of remedies, inspired confidence. 

At once their own sex gave them a preference over many 
rough, burly, indifierent practitioners, whose attainments were 
far below the qualifications of those female physicians who 
have been thoroughly instructed in well conducted medical 
institutions. 

Emigrant ships would immensely improve the condition of 
steerage passengers, by having a female physician permanently 
attached to the vessel. Female passengers need one of their own 
sex, qualified to prescribe for them and their children, and to 
give them counsel. It would insure order, neatness, morality, 
and better health in those crowded collections of men and 
women across the ocean, were this suggestion accepted. It is 
an advance in propriety and the comfort of poor, neglected 
occupants of the steerage, that is bound to be inaugurated, and 
soon too. 

That partition-wall has given way, which prevented the 
advance of enterprise in law, medicine, and theology. Those 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 497 

professions are now open for all who are qualified to sustain 
themselves in them. 

Women, in being admitted to the privileges of medical 
practitioners, have wisely let surgery alone. Their gentleness 
would be out of place where living fiesh is to be cut with sharp 
instruments, even when the object is saving life. Blood is not 
a sight for their eyes. Let them keep within the boundaries 
which instinct directs, and their professional ministrations will 
be appreciated. 

Physiology explains the gradual unfolding of the organic 
system, the function of nutrition, the phenomena of locomo¬ 
tion, vision, audition, and the laws of reproduction. Female 
medical students as fully comprehend difficult problems as 
young gentlemen. Indeed, they are ordinarily closer appli¬ 
cants, thus laying a broad foundation for pathological success 
in their intercourse with the sick. 

Either from a desire for distinction, hallucination, or an ab¬ 
normal craving for notoriety, some women exhibit a perverted 
taste, and a feeble judgment, when they force themselves into 
positions which excite ridicule or contempt. 

Engaged in pursuits within their appropriate sphere, their 
success is almost certain. Botli honor and profit should accrue 
to them for whatever they do, in the same way that men are 
compensated for analogous services. 

Women make excellent physicians where their advantages 
for instruction have been full and complete. They are miser¬ 
able quacks. 

In indentifying themselves with deceptions, whether as the 
seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, a clairvoyant, a spiritual 
medium, a magnetic prescriber, who,.with closed eyes, pretends 
to see through an opaque body and detect obstructions in gland¬ 
ular ducts, and such like nonsense,—they fall below contempt. 


408 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


They are admirable artists, but uniformly fail as quack 
doctresses. Only the partially ignorant presume to practise 
without qualifications. When educated, they are above 
trickery. Honorable professional industry gives no countenance 
to hobgoblins or mesmeric nonsense,—instrumentalities of the 
blind for leading the blind. 

Natural philosophy, intimately incorporated with the study 
of medicine, is an antagonist to superstition. Those who for¬ 
merly could discern ghosts, and were uncompromising believers 
in the manifestations of disembodied souls in mystic circles, 
can see notjiing after becoming familiar with the principles of 
general science. 

So-called medical mediums are impostors. They do not 
emanate from accredited medical institutions. They are not 
to be confounded with those ladies who have been carefully 
and scientifically instructed by competent teachers in all the 
intricacies of theoretical and practical medicine. 

Many medical gentlemen, standing well in communities, 
would run a mortifying tilt with many ladies in an examina¬ 
tion before an authorized board of censors, whose decision should 
depend on the accuracy of their answers. 

Appointment of Medical Teachers. 

Were it customary here to%lect professors by concours, as 
in France, and young ladies recently graduated were permitted 
to be competitors, quite a number of stupid occupants of uni¬ 
versity chairs, obtained through family assistance or the potency 
of cash, would have to give way to higher attainments. 

In the treatment of female maladies, women are the pj-oper 
professional advisers. It is grossly unjust to assert that they 
have no comprehensive views or therapeutic knowledge beyond 
making water gruel and flaxseed poultices. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


409 


In lecture-rooms, wherever they have been admitted, their 
progress has invariably been equal in all respects to that of 
young men. The latter dissipate more or less,—smoke, drink 
to their detriment, ramble to places of amusement, or where 
there is excitement at evening. Female medical students are 
not guilty of any such sins, if sins they are. They economize 
time in thought and study. Better still, they neither chew, 
smoke tobacco, or stultify themselves with the cm*se of the 
United States,—whiskey. 

Operative surgery is not their forte. Exact familiarity with 
the intricacies of surgical anatomy, however, is one of the 
studies in which female medical students sometimes excel. 
They pursue anatomy with earnestness, so that they occasion¬ 
ally become experts. 

If they have not the requisite firmness or coolness for 
cutting down into a region of vessels and nerves, nor a strength 
of arm for reducing luxations, they are quite well qualified to 
determine the extent, gravity, and probable extent of injuries. 

As oculists and aurists, they might achieve great distinc¬ 
tion. Ophthalmic operations are neither bloody, very painful, 
or attended with hazard to life. With their natural delicacy 
of touch and thorough acquaintance with the structure of the 
eye and ear, they might cure deafness and extract cataracts 
just as skilfully as operators of the other gender. The first 
competent female oculist who commences under favorable 
auspices, could not fail of success,—if the accumulation of a 
fortune were the evidence of it. 

This suggestion is for their consideration. They must ex¬ 
pect to encounter opposition; be misrepresented and abused, 
because it will be a novel interference with the imagined pre¬ 
rogatives of those specialists. It is always far more remunei- 
ative than ordinary general practice. 


410 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Why could not women become expert dentists also ? 

Their tact in watchwork, the manufacture of rich jewellery, 
penmaking, and some other artistic employments with which 
they are identified, besides modelling, designing, painting, and 
engraving, in each and all of which they succeed admirably, in¬ 
sure equal success in the practice of dentistry. Filling carious 
teeth, inserting artificial ones, taking casts of gums, restoring 
cleft palates by the insertion of metallic plates, etc., are all 
within the sphere of their genius. 

Certainly women draw, etch, color, conduct photographic 
and lithographic establishments; and what is to prevent them 
from extending the area of honest enterprise ? In each and all 
of those callings they could earn, legitimately, quite as much as 
men, and what is to prevent them from being equally well 
compensated ? 

Mental Activity. 

Great undertakings are not accomplished by main strength. 
Brain force is that specific power wielded by orators, infiuential 
divines, brilliant commanders, revolutionizing writers, disturb¬ 
ing politicians, great property-gatherers, bold projectors, and by 
all those men and women who leave ineffaceable memorials of 
their existence in the archives of history. 

Neither legislative enactments, denunciations from the 
pulpit, the bitterness of reviewers, the decisions of unjust 
judges, or the giant strength of money, can stay the march of 
genius. It is stronger than all mechanical powers combined. 
Genius is not boisterous or presumptuous. It is a quiet faculty. 
Pretenders are both positive and superficial. The records of 
history and the experience of mankind prove that women, in 
capacity, originality, diligence, thoroughness, skill, and intel¬ 
lectual acumen, are capable of accomplishing in art, science. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


411 


and literature, whatever men do under precisely analogous cir¬ 
cumstances. They are therefore entitled to the privilege of 
embarking on the sea of enterprise. 

Men who are rated vastly beyond their merits, harnessed 
in petticoats, laced in stays, half-clad in gossamer garments, 
corded round the waist, and dieted on dry toast and tea, 
restrained by arbitrary custom to the house eleven hours in 
twelve, breathing impure air, instead of refreshing, vitalized 
currents out of door, mounted on high heels, and every hair on 
their heads put upon a stretch, and held back by iron pins and 
combs,—suddenly called, would they appear to any better advan¬ 
tage than their mothers, wives, and sisters ? 

Public Opinion a Restraint. 

Women are cruelly hampered and restrained by the fear of 
what may be said of them, so that physically and intellectually, 
they appear to disadvantage. 

There are some generous enough to admit that women have 
natural rights of which they have been defrauded by law¬ 
makers. With the progress of liberal sentiments, a gratifying 
feature of modern civilization, concessions are gradually being 
made to them. A restoration of rights and privileges must be 
made. 

Theoretically—and it is a legal fiction—a man and wife are 
one; “ but the husband is the said a female orator on a 

notable occasion. 


CHAPTEK XXXIV. 


Marriage. 

Excuses of Husbands—Marriage—Purchase of Relief—Helpmate—Moral Re¬ 
flections—Happiness in Children—Life Expectation—Womanly Affec¬ 
tion—Probabilities of Life—Excess of Female Population. 

The great event in a woman’s life is marriage. They 
reckon from the epoch of their marriage as a point of de¬ 
parture. It is the first milestone on the highway of domestic 
relations which outranks and overtops all other circumstances 
in their earthly pilgrimage, y 

They begin to think of it early, without having any very 
definite views of the responsibility that belongs to that solemn 
connection. 

Universal attention is given to the subject in all countries, 
yet only a few of the many marry precisely to their liking. 

Were it possible to obtain a true and exact knowledge of 
the amount of domestic happiness appertaining to that state, 
wedlock would make some strange revelations. 

Very excellent ladies, model women in their matrimonial 
relations, are often wearing a mask to conceal a cancer gnawing 
at their heart. 

They are compelled to be hypocrites to the end, because 
respectability is everything. To assume the appearance of 
happiness, prevents the mortifying comments of those in whose 
estimation it is an object to stand well. 

Merchants, bankers, and, indeed, most men in active busi- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


413 


ness who give emplo^nnent to young men, keep them at an 
unwarrantable distance. The civility of inviting them to their 
own houses, and giving them the acquaintance of their pleasant 
families, rarely occurs, however much their clerks may have 
merited their esteem. Some become dissipated from having no 
respectable places to visit,—none to give them an encouraging 
recognition. 

How many such neglected counting-room drudges become 
the leading men of the day, eventually taking a flight entirely 
beyond the narrow circle from which their patrons excluded 
them! Splendid husbands might have been discovered in such 
neglected worth, by attachments formed between lovely young 
ladies and poor but deserving young men. Tho policy of 
allowing those with nothing for a capital but unsullied honor 
and enterprise, to address a rich man’s daughters, by no means 
has the approval of a managing mother. Her ambition is to 
engineer her angels into favor with those reputed to be worth 
the most. 

Neither heart nor principle is involved in the speculation, 
as matrimonial adventures are now conducted on both sides of 
the Atlantic. Women are notoriously bought or sold to the 
highest bidder. Love is not in the bargain. The purchaser 
obtains a fool with her dot, and she a rake who wishes her 
under ground after getting control of the funds. Those are 
the matches ending in divorce. 

Were young ladies satisfled with the attentions of virtuous, 
unpretending young men, whose only fault is their poverty, 
what gems they would often secure! General Washington 
offered himself to a lady to whom he was devotedly attached, 
but had the mortification of being rejected by the haughty 
heiress, because he was only a major without property. 
She afterwards stood at a window, in the city of Balti- 


414 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


more, as that spumed lover passed through the street, lined 
on either side hv immense multitudes with uncovered heads, 
—President of the United States of America, the saviour 
of his country, whose name and fame will live till time shall 
he no more. She swooned, and was removed from the apart¬ 
ment. 

In marital relations, women cany the heaviest end of the 
beam. They are too much burdened in the middle walks of 
life with cares, and consequently they suffer more than men in 
family responsibilities, especially w'hen uncongenially united. 


Excuses of Bad Husbands. 

Husbands absent themselves from disagreeable homes on a 
plea of business, when an apology is necessary. Frivolous pre¬ 
tences are always to be found for absence without exciting par¬ 
ticular remark that might essentially affect their moral standing 
in society, were the exact facts of the case known. 

Their wives, however badly treated or neglected, cannot 
flee so readily from the presence of one who abuses them, 
without raising a wdiirlwind of imgenerous surmises injurious 
to their reputation. 

Ho true woman likes to face a tornado of scandal. Men 
and women must associate. It was so designed from the begin¬ 
ning. Monastic institutions, which interdict matrimony, are at 
war with nature. It is unnatural and opposed to a fundamental 
law of life. 

A society which forbids the association of males and fe¬ 
males on a basis contemplated in this proposition, cannot main¬ 
tain such a system of discipline without exercising a vigilance 
perfectly despotic. 



THE LOVERS, 



































































































THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


415 


Shaker Celibacy. 

The Shakers have probably carried the experiment as far as 
any anomalous religious sect, and as successfully too, so far as 
complete non-intercourse is essential in their creed. They 
make but few converts, and the sect would soon be extinct were 
it not for the children they gather among sinners. 

Their organization is recruited from sources they absolutely 
condemn as sinful. 

With their wealth, their beautifully cultivated farms, model 
gardens, well-finished brooms, medicinal herbs, carefully packed 
seeds, apple-sauce, and some other manufactures, their societies 
may be held together through one or two more generations. 
Thus all religious monastic associations are sustained—in op¬ 
position to a law of nature. 

There must be, inevitably, a last day in their calendar. A 
dissolution will come, because they are opposed to a law of God, 
on which the perpetuity of races depends. It can neither be 
modified nor repealed by human effort. Let the Shaker doc¬ 
trines be fully sustained, and the beautiful earth in two hun¬ 
dred years would not have one human being on its surface. 

Institutions antagonistic to laws governing our physical or¬ 
ganization, cannot be sustained. There may be a temporary 
show of resistance, and a pride in pretending that extraordinary 
exaltation of mind is attained by subordinating all emotions, 
passions, and instincts to the empire of reason, but nature 
triumphs at last. 

Eeligious enthusiasts are prone to announce theories which 
they proclaim to be decidedly gratifying to the Creator. Can 
it be a pleasure to that ever-living Power, that has fashioned 
things as they are and as they will continue to be, to have in¬ 
tellectual beings in perpetual warfare against instinct, with 


416 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


wliicli lie has endowed us ? Death alone can give them their 
quietus! 

Still, with a knowledge of the physiological endowments of 
nature, they make unrelaxing efforts, and bigots run mad with 
pent-up wrath, because they cannot rule supremely and force 
their dogmas and crotchets down the throats of unbelievers. 

Marriage. 

A majority of mankind, wherever located, savage, barbar¬ 
ous, or enlightened by education, act in strict accordance with 
natural laws, conducive to health, morals, and happiness. 

It is not necessary to discuss the subject to prove the truth 
of this proposition. 

Thus it has been since Adam resided in the garden of Eden, 
and so it will be while men and women are in existence. 

Matrimony is an ancient institution, but the misery of be¬ 
ing mis-matched is a condition of wretchedness, which senti¬ 
mental reformers will find it hard to remedy. If a couple are 
joined in wedlock, and subsequently discover that they are mis- 
mated, it is a tedious process to relieve themselves of the misery 
of that relation. 

In countries making no pretensions to civilization, when 
parties discover they are not congenial to each other, they simply 
separate. That is a relief which the civil law, and certainly ec¬ 
clesiastical law, very tardily and reluctantly permits. 

Were it possible for contracting parties to understand each 
other before marriage, in regard to temperament, disposition, 
moral feelings, and tendencies of character, it would be a bless¬ 
ing to both, since they could avoid many of those forms of un¬ 
happiness that lead to dissatisfaction, hate, and, lastly, revenge, 
which occasionally closes the drama of married life, before the 
real purpose and responsibilities of the compact are understood. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


417 


Some women imagine their lovers are to continue picking 
up their gloves from the altar to three score and ten. Silly men 
appear surprised that the angels they have caged wear shoes, 
and actually possess stomachs. Of course, where there is nei¬ 
ther judgment nor common-sense for guidance, there is no 
binding principle. 

Assuming that men and women Were designed to live 
together, it is a problem with divines and legislators how¬ 
to regulate marriage so as to secure equal rights, without 
caring a tig about the domestic happiness of those entering 
upon that solemn contract. The law looks after property, 
and regulates the disposition of it in every contingency, grow 
ing out of the discontent or separation of those who have been 
legally joined. 

^7o combination of circumstances produces such real felicity 
as the relation of husband and wife, when congenially united. 
If not cordially associated, then it is an intolerable bondage, 
hard to bear. 

Ecclesiastical laws contemplate a secure binding, leaving the 
parties without escape from miseries which may, and certainly 
do, follow inharmonious marriages. 

When united, as it has repeatedly happened in this country, 
as the parties supposed, in jest, on a festive occasion, and it was 
subsequently discovered the ceremony had actually been per¬ 
formed by a magistrate, unknown to them, in that official char¬ 
acter, it has been held in law that they were husband and wife, 
although entirely contrary to the wishes or expectation of both 
sufferers. 

Such a connection, it would seem, in equity and reason, 
ought not to be obligatory. But the civil, and, perhaps, eccle¬ 
siastical tribunals concur in holding the parties to all the obliga¬ 
tions that bind consenting, loving couples. 

27 


418 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Such marriages cannot be dissolved without wading tlirough 
tedious and expensive legal processes, and a free expenditure of 
money, \vdnch last powder carries more weight with it than the 
eternal principles of justice. 

Communities are agitated by occasional accidental marriages. 
Sometimes a deep plot is laid, and one of the parties is unsus¬ 
pectingly duped into the trap matrimonial by an irrepressible 
lover or fortune-hunter. 

Courts are invoked, and legislative bodies implored for 
special acts for emancipation from wretchedness that can only 
terminate with death, if no relief is afforded at the fountain 
from whence the law had its origin. 

Nothing can be accomplished by the unhappy poor in that 
dilemma, but what they do for themselves. Women commit 
suicide, and men run away beyond the knowledge of those who 
may have known them. It is useless for those without funds 
to pray tribunals to break the chains that hold them in uncon¬ 
genial wedlock, and let them go free again, even wdien the 
petition is a mutual prayer of the aggrieved sufferers. 

PUECHASE OF EsLIEF. 

Paving the way to justice with dollars, is the modem 
method of making a quick passage over a rough road. Money 
is omnipotent with magistrates, who care more for mammon 
than the approval of conscience. 

There is a cry for a modification of certain laws for the 
special benefit of the unhappy in marriage, to arrest the pro¬ 
gress of demoralization in the land. 

It is asserted by Oriental travellers that there is far more 
domestic felicity in those far off, unchristian countries, where 
wives are purchased, and even among savages, whom instinct, 


THE WATS OP WOMEN. 


419 


and not sentiment, guides in the choice of a wife, than with ns, 
where law binds, but reluctantly unbinds, the tangled w^eb of 
infelicities, which sometimes characterize matrimony. 

A grave question with moralists is this, viz.: Has any 
government positive, unquestionable authority for . impo^ng 
obligations upon men and women, that it would be a violation 
of a divine law to abrogate, if they failed to secure the purposes 
for which they were enacted ? 

There is such manifest dissatisfaction all over the^ United 
States, with legislative action respecting matrimonial affairs, 
that some new legal principle is urgently demanded to meet the 
emergency. 

As it is, divorces are as common as revolutions among dis¬ 
satisfied politicians. Even the descendants of the Puritans, 
priding themselves on their law-abiding character for propriety, 
have become restless. Howhere is there more wretchedness in 
matrimonial bonds than in the Hew England States,—largely 
tracing their origin to the voyagers of the Mayfiower. 

Helpmate, 

Hot unfrequently the press represents that women are 
• oftener to blame than men, in squabbles for emancipation. 
The cry comes from all points that female education, as now 
conducted, quite ignores those homely notions once in repute, 
that a wife should be a helpmate. 

Women have witching powers of fascination for leading silly, 
as well as well-balanced intellectual men wherever they choose. 
But the contrary creatures themselves cannot be driven an inch. 

In this fact is discoverable the origin of many family 
troubles, culminating in ineffable misery, which nothing short 
of divorce can assuage. 


420 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


Climate exei'ts a baneful influence on some temperaments at 
the ITorth. Nearer the tropics, divorces are less frequent, even 
among tliose who have no educational advantages. 

The clergy, claiming to interpret the Divine Will, un¬ 
willing to relinquish their hold upon the masses, are accused of 
keeping old theories and old customs alive too long. 

Law or no law, human or divine, when a couple discover an 
incompatibility for each other, they generally act independently 
of legislative requirements,—^braving the denunciations of the 
pulpit. 

Where obstacles are interposed which cannot legally be re¬ 
moved for the accommodation of one of the parties, enormous 
crimes are often perpetrated under the idea of regaining lost 
liberty. 

Cruelties, suicide, and murder are the bad consequences of 
compulsory laws, obliging those to drag out life in riveted 
wretchedness who desire separation. 

A Question EEGARDiifG Divorce. 

But divorces ought not to be granted on a trifling pretext. 
When a man and wife declare their determination not to reside 
together, for reasons best known to themselves, cogent and 
right in their own deliberate estimation, what is gained for 
public morals by keeping their shackles riveted for ever 1 

Neither society, religion, nor the State, is beneflted by an un¬ 
relaxing policy which would see both ruined for earth, and un¬ 
fitted for heaven, in the agony of their uncongenial condition. 

While we are unflinching advocates for marriage, based on 
affection, it seems cruel to open no avenue for escape under cir¬ 
cumstances which plead for sympathy and relief. 

It is useless to attempt the development of love or personal 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


421 


respect by law. A physiological argument, that celibacy is 
unfavorable to longevity, never hurried any one into matri¬ 
mony on the ground that it was solely for the purpose of saving 
life. 


Moral Eeflections. 

Men and women unmarried have a weaker hold upon life 
than the married. Were the institution abolished, public 
health and public morals would reduce society first to con¬ 
fusion, and then to chaos. 

Mankind cannot be sustained in soundness without obeying 
laws on which the perpetuity of a race depends. 

Marriage, then, not only elevates humanity, but also gives 
us a stronger hold upon life. Single men or single women do 
not live as many years as the married, all things being equal, 
nor are they as free from indisposition on an average. 

A minute exemplification of this assertion would be too 
professional, hence illustrations are omitted. Every medical 
practitioner could verify this statement from the records of his 
own practice, were it necessary. 

In 1869, the following statistical information was chronicled 
in Illinois, abundantly proving as much as may be required for 
sustaining an opinion that matters are loosely conducted in one 
State, if not in all, calculated to rouse the apprehension of 
moralists in regard to the future condition of a Christian com¬ 
munity :— 

“ Two hundred and seventy-four aspirants for widowhood, 
out of a total of 454, filed their papers in that court, and 195 
discontented husbands appealed to the same tribunal. The 
whole number of divorce suits commenced in the three courts in 
1869, was Y23 against 430 the previous year. Four hundred and 
fifty-four of these were brought by wives, and 269 by husbands. 


422 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


The ‘ better half/ it will be seen from this, is the most restive 
half in the hymeneal coupling by considerable. Of the 454 
wives who sought release from the yoke of matrimony, 304 
were made happy by liberation, and 150 were remanded back 
to the galling bondage. The husbands fared somewhat better 
in proportion, as they generally contrive to do, and 191 out of 
the total 269 were sent on their way rejoicing to seek new 
affinities.” 

Life-insurance companies are gradually gathering in a mass 
of statistical illustrations confirmatory of these views, some 
of which are quite new in their physiological bearing ; at least, 
they have never been so plainly and intelligibly demonstrated 
in a popular fonii. They are hygienic discoveries, sent forth 
like pilots to guide those who are authorized to take risks in 
the issue of policies. 

Unfortunately for themselves, women seem to consider 
maternity a disease, and, therefore, accompanied by a hazard 
which many are unwilling to incur. Confinements, slight and 
temporary as they are in ordinary childbirth, are contemplated 
by insurance offices as sickness, perilling life. Childbirth is 
not a disease. It is not a condition that should give the 
slightest apprehension of danger. To become a mother is 
equivalent to having a longer lease of life. The oldest women 
are those who have borne many children. 

Formerly, those who had had the largest number were most 
honored. Uow, those having the fewest, or none at all, are 
complimented as fortunate beings. 


HAPPiiq-Ess IN Children. 

Children are not a curse, though they are sometimes sources 
of great solicitude and care. On the contrary, they are bless- 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


423 


ings, even to those whose means are most restricted, as might 
be shown were it of consequence to reiterate what is universally 
admitted to be true in all countries and among all orders of 
men. 

Large families present a strong front, but a childless house¬ 
hold is a desolate place before the sands of life have run 
out. 

Children are a national blessing. Mothers of many are the 
safety of a state. Those without them have contributed 
nothing to, humanity. Who is to rise up to call them 
blessed ? 

Examples of extreme longevity have been recorded of 
females who had never been mothers. Such, however, are ex¬ 
ceptions to the general law of feminine life. 

If it could be ascertained what the precise condition may 
have been of those represented to have died in childbed, it is 
probable it would appear they died in most instances from 
other causes. During gestation, tuberculous affections of the 
lungs and scrofulous difficulties that were undermining the con¬ 
stitution, are usually partially suspended, that the new being in 
its embryotic state in utero may be developed. After its birth, 
the malady kept in abeyance then resumes its destructive 
course. 

ISTature steps in with a helping hand, keeping back the 
messenger of death till the new candidate for life comes into 
the* world to be sustained independently of the maternal 
system. - 

This is a feature of such striking import, that it cannot be 
viewed in any other way than a special provision for meeting 
an emergency. 

It is a further subject of curious philosophical interest, that 
medical reminiscences also furnish proofs of perfect restoration 


424 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


to health, from feeble emaciation, dunng the months of gesta¬ 
tion. The system had time for recuperating during a suspen¬ 
sion of a disease; and, once gaining an ascendency, the vital 
. forces were able to maintain the advantage after parturition. 

Life Expectation. 

By marriage, the expectations of life are enhanced and im¬ 
proved. In that relation, women live longer than men. 

Widows have more vitality than widowers, all other things 
being equal, and a majority of them are alive, when widowers 
are very considerably reduced in numbers, in any given area of 
country. This difference is due to the better habits of women. 
They are more serene, secretive, and less exposed to debilitat¬ 
ing excitement. 

Women are more reserved than men, less frequently thrown 
into abandoned society, and when their suspicions are roused, 
that contaminating influences are approaching, they resist de¬ 
moralizing attacks far more heroically, besides being character¬ 
istically more consistent and conservative. 

Single ladies, especially in New England, are prone to en¬ 
gage in reformatory schemes. They are prodigiously resolute 
in their efforts to compel the world to believe in their pre-con- 
ceived standard of right. 

Other States furnish a few strong female representative 
minds, devotedly working to keep the social elements in com¬ 
motion, that they may finally settle down in conformity to 
their theoretical ideal of political, social, and moral equality on 
earth. 

Married ladies less frequently exhibit themselves on plat¬ 
forms as agitators. When they do ascend the rostrum, how¬ 
ever, and once put their hands to the plow, there is energy, but 






THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


425 


always less powerful than exhibitions of single women, when 
they are fully persuaded they have a mighty mission to per¬ 
form. 

When a married woman dives into a sea of political strife, 
or rouses the community by sensational appeals, were the pre¬ 
cise motives influencing her truly known, it would be found it 
was only a safety valve, by which she endeavors to make an es¬ 
cape from some domestic infelicity at home, or to divert the at¬ 
tention of the public from herself to herself. It is not applause 
that is sought. She is striving to conceal something, the publi¬ 
cation of which might plunge her to the depths of unhappiness. 

The appearance of ladies in unnatural positions, officiating 
as political orators, reformers, preaching, figuring as military 
officers, and similar performances, which their organization, thin 
dress, education, and habits forbid, in the judgment of man¬ 
kind, and the promptings of their own feminine instincts,—it is 
morally certain there is something to be concealed. 

On ascending the pulpit or the forum, either to plead 
causes or expound theology, it may be assumed that those posi¬ 
tions are only waste-gates, through which are floated away 
pent-up nervousness. 

Womanly Affections. 

Yearnings of the heart in women require objects on which 
to bestow those outgushings of love, which belong to their 
nature. If disappointed in youth, the fire never goes out, even 
in advanced age. 

It burns with intensity in middle life, but may be modified 
by new relations, which divert the mind from a perpetual con¬ 
templation of unrequited afiection, cruel neglects, or slander¬ 
ous insinuations, which embitter the soul. 

27 * ' • 


426 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Eartli has no rage like love to hatred turn’d, 

Or hell a fury like a woman spurned.” 

In a prize essay on the physical signs of longevity in man, 
published in 1869 by the Popular Life Insurance Company, 
it is laid down as a remarkable circumstance, that when the 
glow and warm blood of youth have cooled with an increase 
of years, single women are exceedingly prone to embark in 
some radical scheme or ism^ quite in contrast with their former 
tenor of life. 

, If, says that paper, they embrace religious or political doc¬ 
trines, quite unthought of, or which, perhaps, if reflected upon 
carelessly, had made no permanent impression, there is no 
calculating upon the force of their enthusiasm. 

In Europe, an excess of vitality in the sex is exhausted in 
some other direction. 

Hew-England women And no outlet to their excessive ac¬ 
cumulation of mental %*ce giving such immediate relief as 
facing assemblies of dissatisfled persons like themselves. 

Single women, however mentally moved to revolutionize a 
village or the State, with all the strain brought to bear on a 
fragile system in the promulgation of the cause they may have 
espoused, have a stronger hold on life, and a better prospect of 
old age than single revolutionary men, simply because they 
neither smoke, chew tobacco, drink to excess, carouse at places 
of entertainment, or keep very late hours in protracted excite¬ 
ments. 

Their regularity in diet, and freedom from common dissipa¬ 
tions which disgrace men, are anchors that moor them safely 
in a sea of social commotion. 

While on this subject, it may be of some service to female 
readers to have the views of discreet medical statisticians on 
conditions which are inherited, affecting their longevity, drawn 




THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 427 

from the same source from whence was extracted the paragraph 
on female reformers. 

Peobabilities in Eegard to Life. 

First. Both men and women, bom of a parentage remark¬ 
able for long life, inherit vitality, and are generally tenacious 
of life. 

They occasionally reach a very advanced period, being rarely 
the victims of acute epidemic diseases. » 

Second. Children bom of parents, one but not both of 
whom inherited long life, do not equally inherit vitality. 

In a considerable number of brothers and sisters thus born, 
some of them will live to be aged, but not all. 

Third. Men or women with particularly long bodies, other¬ 
wise well developed, and governed by all the circumstances and 
conditions heretofore noted, give satisfactory physical signs of a 
long life. 

Fourth. Married women who have been mothers, if in com¬ 
fortable circumstances, especially in the country, have the 
prospect of a longer life than those who have not borne 
children. 

Fifth. Widows have not the prospect of so long a life as 
married women. 

Sixth. Widowers have not a prospect of so long a life as 
married men. Married persons, if happily connected, have a 
prospect of a longer life than if unmarried. 

Seventh. Unmarried women, in health, easy in their circum¬ 
stances, and pleasantly conditioned in society, have a prospect 
of a longer life than unmarried men of the same social stand¬ 
ing. 

Eighth. Unmarried women, dependent upon their own per- 


428 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


sonal efforts, and harassed by anxieties, have not a prospect of 
long life. 

Ninth. Excitable, fractious men or women, when married, 
who are subject to paroxysms of sudden anger, peril their pro¬ 
spects of a long life. 

Tenth. Both men and women, although in easy circum¬ 
stances, if of a jealous, irritable disposition, or subject to morose 
exhibitions of temper, married or unmarried, have not a pro¬ 
spect of long life. Still, a few out of many may sometimes 
live to be aged. 

Eleventh. Men or women who have changed their residence 
from a cold or moderately temperate climate of one continent, 
to a similar one on another, if comfortable in circumstances, 
and industrioirs and correct in their habits, do not have their 
vitality impaired. 

Twelfth. Men or women who remove from one continent to 
another, as from Europe to America, or from America to 
Europe, if inclined to excesses which impair vital force, may 
die prematurely. 


Excess of Female Population. 

Females in the FTew-England States already outnumber 
the male population at particular points; and there is a social 
cause operating that will give a female majority in all of 
them within a few years. 

An excess of females in nearly all the large cities of the 
Atlantic coast, from Maine to Washington, is an unfortunate 
circumstance for the prosperity of the nation, as it is for 
humanity. 

It is impossible for them all to have husbands, simply be¬ 
cause there are not men enough, numerically, to meet the case, 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


429 


provided, in all other respects, the way were clear for honor¬ 
able marriage. 

A discrepancy is an argument for providing for an increas¬ 
ing army of females proper and remunerative employments. It 
must be done, or fearful consequences, poverty, destitution, 
demoralization, crime, and, indeed, a deplorable moral deso¬ 
lation, will certainly ensue. 

If they could be induced to’ cast their bread upon the 
waters of hope, in the fruitful regions of the West, where 
men are vastly more numerous than women, their protec¬ 
tion would be complete, and they might safely calculate upon 
that measure of security, happiness, and ultimate indepen¬ 
dence, which flows from virtuous and well-directed efforts. 

Here is a statistical synopsis of the population of the globe, 
with a classification.* 


* There are on the globe 1,288,000,000 souls, of which 

360,000,000 are of the Caucasian race. 

552,000,000 are of the Mongol race. 

190,000,000 are of the Ethiopian race. 

176,000,000 are of the Malay race. 

1,000,000 are of the Indo-American race. 

There are 3,642 languages spoken, and 1,000 different religions. 

The yearly mortality of the globe is 33,333,333 persons. This is at the 
rate of 91,554 per day, 3,730 per hour, 62 per minute. So each pulsation of 
the heart marks the decease of some human creature. 

The average of human life is 33 years. 

One-fourth of the population dies at or before the age of seven years. 

One-half at or before seventeen years. 

Among 10,000 persons one arrives at the age of 100 years ; one in 500 
attains the age of 90 ; and one in 100 lives to the age of 60. 

Married men live longer than single ones. 

In 1,000 persons 95 marry, and more marriages occur in June and Decem¬ 
ber than in any other month of the year. 

One-eighth of the whole population is military. 

Professions exercise a great influence on longevity. In 1,000 individuals 
who arrive at the age of 70 years, 43 are priests, orators, or public speakers, 
30 are agriculturists, 33 are workmen, 32 are soldiers or military employes, 
29 advocates or engineers, 27 professors, and 24 doctors. 



430 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


It is evident that there is no time to lose, if there is a ray of 
ambition to turn life to the best account. 

There is not only a perpetual yearning for something more 
tlian we have, but a strife also‘for positions that promise, 
either truly or theoretically, to facilitate the acquisition of that 
in which much happiness is imagined to exist. 


Those who devote their lives to the prolongation of others die the soonest. 
There are 336,000,000 Christians. 

There are 5,000,000 Israelites. 

There are 60,000,000 Asiatic religionists. 

There are 190,000,000 Mahometans. 

There are 300,000,000 Pagans. 

In the Christian Churches— 

170,000,000 profess the Roman Catholic. 

75,000,000 profess the Greek faith. 

80,000,000 profess the Protestant. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

Their Dangers in Marriage. 

Laws of Descent—EvoKition—Marriage of Whites with Blacks—Mental and 
Physical Deterioration—Manly Perfection—Inherited Virtue&—Selec¬ 
tions, etc. 

How far and to what extent we are accountable for what, to 
our short-sightedness, seems quite beyond control, is a question 
to be pondered upon by those who assume to be wise where 
others are in doubt. 

Our existence is forced upon us. It is a destiny, and, there¬ 
fore, no way within the sphere of our volitions. 

Were we consciously alive before being united with perish¬ 
able humanity, and it were optional with us to change relations, 
and become associated with a body subjected to the vicissitudes 
which are inseparable from existence on earth, how many 
would probably hazard the entei*prise ? 

XTothing in the divine economy is more marvellous tlian the 
succession of animals and plants. 

AVonderfully ingenious contrivances are invented, which 
perform operations so complicated and extraordinary, that an 
unsuspecting observer would be ready to admit that the move¬ 
ments indicated a spirit of intelligence. Such may be the com¬ 
bination of wheels, springs, and weights, as to appear like the 
phenomena of life. And yet, life surpasses the comprehension 
of the profoundest investigators, and the most learned in science. 
Ingeniously devised as machines may be, none of them keep 


432 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


tliemselves in repair, or reproduce similar machines when the 
old ones are broken or worn out. 

Nature, superior and supreme, does both. One generation 
succeeds another, supplying the world with new and vigorous 
laborers for uninterrupted progress. The fountain from whence 
flows a river of life is exhaustless. Though man dies, and in¬ 
dividuals are forgotten in the revolutions of time, yet while 
the globe moves in its orbit, men will be in existence to super¬ 
intend the domain to which they belong. 

With the progress of discovery, we have had glimpses of 
wrecks of ancient cities, and examined skeletons of monster 
animals, that once had exclusive possession of this fair country, 
at a period so vastly remote, that neither chronologists nor 
geologists agree upon the number of centuries those osseous 
remains have been hermetically sealed up in rocks, or concealed 
in the bowels of the earth. 

Marine shells on the summits of the highest mountains, 
raised to their lofty elevation by upheaval forces from the 
depths of primitive seas, testify to mighty revolutions in the 
physical aspect of the land and sea. 

Evolution. 

A query has been advanced as to whether the lineal 
descendants of any progenitor in families now recognized as 
representatives of ancient types, bear a resemblance to those 
from whence their existence was derived. 

Learned inquirers contend that there has been a gradual 
evolution going on from the very creation of each and every 
race now in existence, and, therefore, the last in the series must 
be entirely different in structure, and, consequently, has 
modified tendencies, instincts, and propensities. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


433 


This is a new doctrine with an increasing school of disciples. 

• From the simplest forms, according to the new theory, com¬ 
plicated structures and exterior forms far more peifect have 
been developed, and, therefore, better calculated for sustaining 
higher relations than those from which they originally sprang, 
far back in the realms of chaos. * Germs could not have pos¬ 
sessed either volition or locomotive force. 

Assuming that man was at first a granule, a mere speck, a 
germ floating in a fathomless, illimitable ocean of space, in 
which was embodied an inherent vitalization, always exerting 
itself by unconscious eflbrts to push out further, and to become 
larger, stronger, and, perhaps, have organs of prehension, it is 
quite as difficult to manage the problem of a first commence¬ 
ment of the spark of life, as to account for the manifestations 
of intellect. ♦' 

How long men have walked on two feet or had a brain- 
capable of reasoning, eludes the prying industry of paleon¬ 
tologists. Some are becoming bold in their determinations to 
ignore the Mosaic cosmogony. They pretend to believe that 
man has been on this earth far longer than the sacred historian 
represents, if a true interpretation has been rendered of the 
inspired narrative. 

If the mastodon, and the great saurian reptiles almost one 
hundred feet in length, were extinct ten thousand years ago, 
some have the presumption to assert that man was here with 
them. 

A few arrow-heads, found sticking fast in a skull of a 
gigantic monster that, theoretically, has been dead ten thousand 
years, is brought in support of the proposition. They assume 
it as almost conclusive evidence that men of those times were 
hunters, and that flint-armed arrows were fabricated by them 

for killing game. That was the stone age. 

28 


434 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


It might be asserted with equal propriety, that those ani¬ 
mals have not been extinct one thousand years. 

Let.all speculations of that kind pass, since our geological 
acquirements are not so firmly fixed but they may undergo 
many modifications in the progress of further discoveries. 

Theories are easily constructed and unceremoniously aban¬ 
doned without loss. We have penetrated but a little way into 
the crust of the earth, where stiiinge things will come to the 
surface to astonish naturalists at some remote future. 

Law op Descent. 

Transmitting to a ne^v being some anomaly recognized as 
an anomaly, because of a striking deviation from the type to 
which it belongs, must be received as accidental, and not in 
accordance with the laws of descent. 

Were cross-eyed parents invariably to have cross-eyed chil¬ 
dren,—^hair-lipped sons or blind people, the offspring of persons 
thus unfortunate,—it would give some coloring to the specula-, 
tions of those who insist that there were five Adams, progenitors 
of the five known races of men. There are indeed five distinct 
races. There are certain peculiar characteristics by which they 
are readily distinguished from one another. 

One is yellow, a second black, a third red, a fourth white, 
and a fifth something else. These are pei'plexing facts; but 
on the supposition that climate has produced alterations which 
have become permanent, is the way the subject is most readily 
disposed of by those who give it the least consideration. 

According to the record of Genesis, the first man, Adam, 
was created about six thousand years ago. That belief is sus¬ 
tained by researches not to be lightly questioned. 

Here we approach stumbling-blocks that derange many 





THE WATfe OF WOMEN. 


435 


finely-drawn arguments, not strengthened by science. Revela¬ 
tion is one tbfng, and the laws of nature something entirely 
different. 

About two thousand years after the creation of Adam, some 
of his lineal posterity were singularly altered, in the color of 
their skin, if it is assumed he was a white man. If the Cauca¬ 
sian is a type of our Eden ancestors, strange changes have 
taken place in the form of the face of the representative races 
of men now in existence. Monuments are still standing, four 
thousand years old, inscribed with characters which record, pro¬ 
bably, remarkable events. Enough of some of them have been 
deciphered to ascertain their immense antiquity, reaching with¬ 
in two thousand years of Adam’s lifetime. And on many of 
them are sculptured facial outlines, profiles, and human faces, 
that show men looked then just as they do' in eighteen hundred 
and seventy-three. Five distinct races of human beings un¬ 
questionably existed then, that is, four thousand years ago.* 

The negro features on those monumental guide-posts into the 
obscurities of the past, were precisely what they are in Africa 
to-day. The protruding jaws, thick lips, and crispy, woolly 
covering of the head, were then as they are now. 

How was a change from a Caucasian type, if that was tlie 
original facial form, color, and expression, brought about in two 
thousand years, and from that period, resulting in permanent al¬ 
terations, that arrange mankind in five distinctly marked varie¬ 
ties of men ? 

Ho essential physical, and, possibly, no moral tendencies or 
changes have occurred in four thousand years, since that grand 
revolutionary alteration of the primitive outline form. Hor is 
there tny reason for expecting further modifications in four 
thousand years to come. 

Monster children rarely live more than a few hours from 


436 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


birth. Those born defective in limbs, or with peculiar mark¬ 
ings, misplaced viscera, harelip,- etc., in becoming parents, do 
not transmit their defects to their offspring. They are as fair 
and as beautifully proportioned as the children of symmetrical 
parentage. Tlie exceptions to that law are referred to in an¬ 
other cliapter, as anomalies. 

Chickens are hatched with two heads, four legs j or a boy is 
born with only one arm. But they do not propagate those de¬ 
viations from a normal pattern, which is characteristic of a spe¬ 
cies. They have no descendants like themselves. 

That would eventuate in confusion. The fair world we in- 
liabit, were there no fixed laws respecting definite forms, 
would soon team with hideous monsters, widely differing from 
one another,, both externally and internally. 

Order being an unchangeable law, any deviations from a 
primeval standard, if varying at all, must be very gradually ef¬ 
fected, requiring the revolution of centuries upon centuries. 
There is no sudden or violent departure. 

A mule rarely, if ever, propagates. While some naturalists 
claim it possible, others are strenuous in the opinion that 
it would be impossible, inasmuch as it would be a violation of a 
fundamental law of nature, perpetually in force to preserve 
races, and to prevent anomalous admixtures of blood, that 
would lead to an animal chaos. 

Sterile as mules are, they are influenced by instincts and 
propensities, peculiar to the two distinct stocks from which 
they sprang. There is a compensation for their anomalous con¬ 
dition,—their longevity exceeding both horse and ass. The lat¬ 
ter have, the pleasure of rearing others to take their places, 
which the mule cannot have, as the maternal parent ^as in 
nursing and protecting her long-eared colt, singularly unlike 
herself in exterior appearance. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 437 

An ass is old and quite stupid .at twenty, althougli his lon¬ 
gevity is beyond that of the horse. 

A mule, not abused, is hale, strong, and serviceable, at fifty. 
They have reached eighty years. Though faring poorly, and 
usually treated with severity, he has a compensation in im-. 
munity from ordinary equine maladies. 

A mixture of blood among different races of men neither 
promotes health, strength, nor longevity. 

Some singular phenomena present themselves in^ the amal¬ 
gamation of Asiatics with Africans or American Indians, which 
have a bearing on moral questions, that must necessarily be met 
by those who are earnest for the improvement of humanity. But 
it is a topic to be approached with extreme caution, to avoid 
shocking the sensibilities of modern political philanthropists, 
who discover no diflerence in the intellectual calibre of the 
white* black, red, or yellow man. 

That a soul may be encased in different-colored envelopes, 
according to climatic influence, is a doctrine taught by radical 
social reformers, without afifecting its powers. 

We shall not discuss that subject, which has invariably 
been productive of more vindictive feeling than sound philo¬ 
sophy, whenever brought forward. 

One of the evils attending a practical illustration of the 
doctiine, that it is perfectly right and proper to amalgamate 
races, and mix those of different color and facial expression, 
according to the fancy of unreflecting parties, is a positive 
certainty of deterioration, and the final disappearance of those 
whose origin is thus commenced. 

Is it no violation of a natural law of which each and eveiy 
one, however low in the scale of intelligence, has an instinctive 
appreciation, for whites and blacks to intermarry ? 

Is it not wrong to rear families of all intermediate shades, 


438 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


whose parti-colored appearance does not meet the approval of 
either party ? 

Their children are born to a conscious feeling of degradation. 

Marriage of Whites and Blacks. 

All men are born free and equal in the sight of God, and, 
in the language of political orators, have a right to pursue the 
way that leads to happiness. 

But where is the most devoted friend of the most oppressed 
and maltreated of all races, the negro, who would not manifest 
a repugnance to the union of his accomplished daughters with' 
black husbands, however unexceptionable in manners, culture, 
or character ? 

To pretend that no such sentiment as an instinctive objec¬ 
tion ought to operate against it, would give the lie to one of 
the strongest dictates of nature and conscience. 

For the sake of appearing consistent in the estimation of 
those who might comment to the disadvantage of those pro¬ 
mulgating the doctrine, that color should not be objectionable 
in formiilg marriage-ties, teachers of such abominable senti¬ 
ments may successfully conceal their true feelings; but they 
live hypocrites, self-condemned. 

AYe cannot go counter to the established laws of nature 
and morality, without having a conscious prompting of tlie 
wrong we have been doing. 

In a first remove from the mixed parentage of black and 
white, the children are not all of the same tint. Among a 
group of six, for example, one may be black, with protruding 
lips and short woolly hair ; another will have a retreating fore¬ 
head and lighter complexion. Meither the features of the 
father or the mother are distinctly reproduced in either, while 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


439 


all of them are marked deviations in form, stature, color, and, 
perhaps, mental calibre, from the parents. 

Mental and Physical Deterioration. 

When those children in turn become parents, they are less 
fruitful. In the next remove, they are not well developed. 
Their muscles are slender and flabby, the form inclined to be 
gaunt, and in mental force they are inferior to those from 
whom they derived their being. 

Besides a physical deterioration, a scrofulous diathesis 
begins to appear. They hold out longer than hybrids from 
domesticated animals, with the exception of the mule; but 
according to the remarks of Mr. Forbes, they actually cease to 
propagate in the fifth remove from a union of Caucasian and 
African blood. 


Manly Perfection. 

The negro is a man for Africa, the Malay for the East 
Indies, and whites for temperate zones and hyperborean lati¬ 
tudes. In the temperate, the white man attains the highest 
condition of which his nature is susceptible. 

What is a haK-breed ? In this country it is understood to 
be a child of a white father and a squaw. They have never 
been raised to any prominent positions of usefulness through a 
native spirit .of energy; nor, even when assisted by conscientious, 
painstaking philanthropists, could one of them be made into a 
counsellor, a man of thought, of any value to the interests of 
society. 

Ho educational discipline conducted with special reference 
to proving their capacity for progress, or how splendidly they 
may operate as instrumentalities in advancing the civilization 
of savage tribes, has ever been successful.. 


440 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


They have never gone forward, aided by such facilities as 
have been urged upon them by Christian charity and govern¬ 
mental patronage, to the achievement of any results, predicted 
and hoped for by their warm and sincere friends. 

Half-breeds may be persuaded to reside in houses superior 
to wigwams, to (mltivate fields, and w^ear clothing more com¬ 
plicated than a blanket; yet they do not readily fall in wdth the 
ways of civilization. They have neither been made scholars nor 
very devout worshippers. They are just as near to the usages 
of ordinary civil life as they are to the white man in blood, 
but no nearer. They have to be sustained by unrelaxing 
effort, or they quickly deteriorate by running into those wild 
habits of indolence which are predominant in the nature of 
the stock from which they came, always stronger on the Indian 
side than on the other. 

Some few individual half-breeds have been rather successful 
in elementary agriculture. They may raise corn, send their 
children to schools provided for them, but no scheme has yet 
been successful in moulding them willingly and heartily into 
the ways and habits of Anglo-Saxons. They never can be kept 
up to any standard of civilization to wdiich they have apparently 
been raised. 

Disappearance of the Indians. 

Gradually and inevitably both Indians and their half-breed 
descendants will wholly disappear from the continent. A few 
centuries hence there will not be a remnant left of the red race 
which once roamed with unrestj-ained freedom, like the game 
they pursued, on the broad expanse of Horth America. 

Indians are a pioneer race, whose mission is nearly accom¬ 
plished. Hations were here before them. Millions of human 
beings, who are only known through the monuments that re- 




THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


441 


maiiij the evi(3ences of their industry and labors in the rearing 
of mounds and earthworks, which have outlived the name, the 
fortunes, and the history of those who raised them, were exter¬ 
minated by these remnants of powerful invaders, whose gradual 
extinction is certainly decreed in the court of destiny. 

All such revolutions,—the appearance and disappearance of 
races,—are in conformity to a law of limitation. Nations, like 
individuals, carry in their organization the seeds of dissolution. 

Tendency to Disease Transmissible. 

Children of consumptive parents are born with minute ‘ 
tubercles in their lungs, embedded in elastic pulmonary tissues. 
Their existence may not even be suspected; but when exposed 
to influences which inflame them, they burst and ulcerate 
through the delicate air-cells, and death supervenes. 

Children of consumptive parents rarely escape the fatal 
malady. Even if no incipient tubercles are quiescently slum¬ 
bering in their lungs up to the middle age of life, when reach¬ 
ing the period at which the parents fell under the disease, they 
are pretty sure to pass away in a similar manner, provided they 
remain in the same locality. * 

By taking up a residence where the atmosphere is freer 
from humidity, vitality may be very materially recruited, and 
life prolonged. But whenever tubercles are present, as a direct 
inheritance, no methods have yet been successful in preventing 
them from inflaming, softening, and degenerating into pus. 

When that stage is ushered in, the skill of medical practi¬ 
tioners avails nothing. When those organs in which vitality is 
manufactured—that is, where oxygen is separated from atmo¬ 
spheric air, and carbonic acid thrown off—are actually destroyed, 
a recovery is impossible. ^ 


442 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Deceptions oe Quacks. 

ITotliing is more preposterous than the vaunted pretensions 
of those empirics,—criminal quacks who raise expectations, by 
announcing the restoration of consumptives by new methods 
of medication, generally their own. 

A destruction of the parts of an organ in which vitalizing 
properties of the air are brought in direct contact with arterial 
blood, must terminate fatally. ITo regeneration of destroyed 
parts can be made by any process within the range of science. 

Actual Maladies Inhekited. 

Scrofula is transmissible; so are syphilitic taints, and some 
eruptive maladies. The latter are traceable, carefully inves¬ 
tigated, quite frequently to the same source. Even a pre¬ 
disposition to deafness, nervous irregularities, distorted lingers, 
incurvated nails, enlarged joints, St. Yitus’s dance, and all 
shades of insanity, pass from family to family for several gene¬ 
rations, rather gaining intensity than losing force. 

A tendency to bleed profusely, and even to die of hemor¬ 
rhage from slight punctures, or the simple extraction of a tooth, 
runs in some families, without remedy. 

Inherited Physical Excellencies. 

Such facts, and many more illustrative of the law of 
transmission,, are familiar to physicians. It is equally true 
that personal beauty, line teeth, a tall figure, a musical voice, 
a mathematical brain, are inherited and propagated, like 
moral qualities. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


443 


Imperfection of Art in Saving Life. 

Surgeons, of extensive experience, ‘have often failed to 
arrest hemorrliages in one of those so-called natural bleeders. 
Whether their blood is deficient in that plastic element 
which assists coagulation, or whether a retraction of the lips 
of wounds in them, which <;annot be kept together by ordinary 
mechanical appliances, is owing to some peculiar spasmodic 
contraction of tissues, has not been aiscertained. 

Compression, styptics, or, indeed, any of the commonly 
known modes of arresting a flow of blood in those thus pre¬ 
disposed, are inefiectual. 

Selections in Marriage. 

It behooves those expecting to enter upon the responsi¬ 
bilities of marriage, to weigh well and investigate a family 
history before such relationship is formed, 

A past and present sanitary character of a family with which 
marriage is proposed, is of far more importance than might at 
first be supposed, since various conditions in regard to body and 
mind are propagated, and may lead to individual sufferings and 
misery through generations in the future. 

Such inquiries, of course, would have to be conducted in a 
very guarded manner; otherwise, not only much offence might 
be roused, but the whole matter considered impertinent and 
ridiculous. 

But a regard for one’s own comfort in the possible appear¬ 
ance on the stage of life of others for whose well-being, charac¬ 
ter, and condition, the happiness of parents will be at stake, 
fully justifies such inquiries and investigations. 

If a young, lady has ascertained that consumption is a 


444 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


hereditary malady in the family of the man who proposes him¬ 
self for a husband, prudence should influence her not to peril 
herself, or the children she would probably bear, to the con¬ 
tingencies that surround a family predisposed to a lingering 
and Altai disease. 

She could avoid a prospective trouble. It is useless to ex¬ 
tend the argument against being joined in wedlock with a man 
who is certain to die, as his father, mother, brothers or sisters 
had died, of pulmonary consumption. 

PkogreoS of Pulmonary Consumption. 

An amazing destruction of human life from that incurable 
disease is all the while going on in the United States, particu¬ 
larly in the northern parts. 

Without regard to the laws of probability, or the destruc¬ 
tion of the fair, bright, beautiful, and intelligent, in the begin¬ 
ning of life, by that malady, even to the extinction of families, 
little or no thought is given to that which is pretty sure to oc¬ 
cur when marriage is proposed. 

The farmer selects the soundest, best-developed seeds and 
appropriate soil, otherwise the harvest would be small and im¬ 
perfect. In the raising of stock, none but the soundest in 
health, best-formed, and exhibiting indications of constitutional 
vigor, are allowed to propagate. Thus the high-bred horse, the 
splendid ox, the finest sheep, and choicest poultry are obtained, 
by determining from what source they shall spring. 

"NTature manages among birds and all animals, in a way to 
secure health and strength, by not permitting the weak, feeble, 
puny males to generate at all. They are driven away and kept 
at a distance by the giants of the herd, the flock, and in the 
poultry yard, who alone are the sires of each succeeding genera¬ 
tion. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


445 


The female is passive in all those examples, having no par¬ 
tialities or affections to gratify ; and thus the blood of each is 
kept up to the highest requirements of an organic law. 

If consumptives did not intermarry, hereditary consump¬ 
tion would disappear. Pecuniary advantages, social condition, 
and love, each acting with peculiar force, pay no regard to the 
future, in respect to health. 

Children are thus born to linger in pain, and die early. The* 
necrological annals of this nation is a melancholy record. It 
is not diminishing, but, on the contrary, increasing with the in¬ 
crease of population. 

'When the celebrated Spurzheim was in this country, he 
fearlessly declared in public, that the legislature should inter¬ 
pose its authority, by interdicting the marriage of consumptives. 

EiSK in ^rARIlIAGE. 

In cities, particularly, ladies hazard more in entering upon 
matrimonial relations than in the country, where the avenues 
to vice are fewer, and dissipations, generally, are frowned upon 
with a severity that inaugurates a better system of morals. 

Physicians alone know of the extent of taints which fester 
in the veins of men in cities, who, perhaps, are envied for their 
possessions, their social positions, and their influence. 

Men are more prone to irregular lives than women. They 
plunge into dissipations, of which their most intimate friends 
have no knowledge, and contract diseases, for the relief of 
which they dare not consult their own physician, as it would 
expose their doings where their reputation is enshrined in 
gold. 

Quacks tamper with them, get their money, and keep the 
secret. Being no way qualifled for medicating a patient with 


446 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


grave complaints, tlie canker that gnaws and undermines their 
health is not eradicated, hut a poison is left behind, to annoy 
and worry the sinner'the remainder of his days. 

A father, whose system contains the seeds of an eruptive dis¬ 
ease, a scrofulous tendency, a syphilitic taint, deep-seated ulcer¬ 
ations, unsound teeth, an offensive breath, from internal causes, 
which speak as plainly as such complaints can announce their 
^existence, will pretty certainly transmit them to his children. 

Yery many women have contracted diseases from that 
source, which have made them invalids, and destrojmd all the 
comfort of life, without, perhaps, ever suspecting the origin of 
their protracted misery. 

Cities abound with showy, flashy, fascinating ^ impostors, 
and women are their dupes. Fine establishments, fashionable 
appointments, and costly equipages, however, are no compen¬ 
sation for the loss of health. When they become the wives of 
such men, they are prisoners in a charnel house. 

A reformed rake is not the material for making a good hus¬ 
band. It is the privilege of ladies to decide whom they will have; 
but unless the candidate for their hand and heart have a char¬ 
acter as transparent as glass, it is for their interest to weigh 
every circumstance with extreme deliberation, before saying 
yes or no. 

Transmissible Tendency to Insanity. 

Insanity is another transmissible misfortune in families. 
Beware of a lover whose father or mother has been a lunatic. 
Severe reverses, loss of friends, peculiar affliction, and unfore¬ 
seen accidents, may give rise to distraction. Such forms of in¬ 
sanity are not without hope, when the cause has been removed 
that gave rise to them, and should not therefore be viewed in 
the same light as a hereditary predisposition to insanity. Nor 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


447 


need there be an apprehension of a transmission of any tempor¬ 
ary cerebral irregularities, the result of such causes. 


Be WAKE OF A Predisposition to Intemperance. 

A transmitted predisposition to suicide, a murderous pro¬ 
pensity, and^a morbid craving for strong stimulants, are each 
of them elements that lead to all imaginable unhappiness. 
Avoid them, therefore, in a lover. 

Ladies sometimes marry men who are known to give mani¬ 
festations of those fearful conditions, under an impression that 
they can manage them. To marry an habitual drunkard, when 
the fact is known, under an expectation of wielding an influ¬ 
ence that will lead him to abandon a debasing vice out of 
respect to a wife’s feelings, is an absurdity. They have no 
powers of self-restraint, nor a wife any influence with a 
drinking husband. . 

It is an experiment without a way of escape from impend¬ 
ing misery, shame, and degradation, when a lady of reflnement 
weds a dissipated man. It is a cruel wrong when friends match 
youth, beauty, health, and accomplishments, from sordid motives, 
to an old, shattered body. It is a fearful plunge into an abyss of 
misery. 

Wealth Buts what cannot be Won. 

Such irrational marriages scarcely differ in moral turpitude 
from a direct sale. It is a legalized abomination. 

Property is the object when a blooming miss in her teens 
weds an octogenarian. If there were no money to be won by 
a game of chance—^for it is one, in which the bride fully expects 
the grave will quickly cover up the old carcass she hates—such 
unions would not take place. 


448 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Ambition to be rieli urges brilliant women to risk tlieir 
happiness on a throw of a matrimonial die. How frequently 
the community is astonished by such voluntary exhibitions of 
unnatural alliances,—a living woman chained to a corpse. 

Where is the tenderness, the sympathy, the religious sense 
of honor, the instinct of love, when a woman in the vigor and 
aspirations of youth sacrifices all at the shrine of money ? 

In commenting on the barbarous customs of the Orient, 
where females are sold at prices varying according to physical 
attractions, travellers invariably express their disgust. It is a 
system which Christian civilization frowns upon with indigna¬ 
tion. But are there not sales in the United States, even more 
extraordinary ? 

Blue Beards are not all dead yet. Those women in market, 
waiting for the highest bidder, ofiering themselves voluntarily, 
are neither sacrifices, nor ladies. They are beings without 
heart, without conscience, or a sense of religious accountability 
to society or their Creator. 

A lady is a difierent being. When her moral qualities and 
the attributes of her gentle nature act in the sphere where she 
ought to move, she is recognized as the best gift of God to 


man. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 


Divorces. 

Being Matched—Too Easily Procured—Incompatibility—Progressive In- 
firmities— Matrimonial Bickerings — Congeniality—Commercial—Chil¬ 
dren’s Society—Companionship, etc. 

UNHAPP-mEss in marriage is obviously on the increase; 
lamentably, too, in the highest circles of intelligence in this 
country. 

A direct evidence of this statement is found in the courts of 
law from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the forty-fifth 
degree of north latitude to the Gulf of Mexico. 

Demands for separation from bed and board have become 
disgracefully common all over the United States. Xeither 
legislators, divines, or moralists, have been successful in keep¬ 
ing the family fold in that condition of contentment, which is 
theoretically, if not practically, the basis on which rests the in¬ 
stitution of marriage. 


Being Matched. 

When contracting parties are only paired, but not lovingly 
matched, they become estranged, most unaccountably to them¬ 
selves. Divorces do not appertain to any particular condition 
of life. Clergj^men, lawyers, physicians, merchants, bankers, 
actors, authors, the affluent, the tall, short, fat, lean, and even 
among the industrious, wealth-producing classes, quite down to 
cellars under sidewalks, all have their representative dissatis- 


450 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


fied applicants for relief from the self-imposed shackles of 
matrimony. 

So urgent is the desire for emancipation, hj slipping their 
necks out of the conjugal noose, enactments are undergoing 
modifications in several States to facilitate a retrograde pro¬ 
gress in Christian civilization. 

Too Easily Pkocueed. 

Divorces are procured with disgraceful ease, to the amaze¬ 
ment of those who in other countries have been brought up to 
hold sacre.d an obligation to abide by a marital promise, to religi¬ 
ously hold out, for better or for worse, till death doth them part. 

A facetious story went the round not long ago, of a Massa¬ 
chusetts man who wrote to the clerk of the Legislature of 
Indiana, to ascertain why his petition for a divorce had not been 
acted upon. In answer, the official wrote back it was customary 
in that body to proceed alphabetically; therefore he must not 
be impatient, as it would be impossible to reach M till late in 
the session, as they had only reached B in the regular order of 
application. 


INCOMPATIBILITY. 

A proximate cause of such incompatibility, the generally 
alleged reason for wishing a dissolution of the bond, is 
explained upon what is called vital repugnance. 

There is a kind of congenital uncongeniality, not to be over¬ 
come or subdued by any known process, says a new theorist, 
because there is a difference in their predestined longevity. 

Thus, if a man is twenty years the senior of his wife at mar¬ 
riage, they may possibly sail over life’s tempestuous sea with 
tolerable equanimity a few years. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


451 


Going witli the tide, however, is not their lot. Both are 
occasionally rowing against a strong current, without keeping 
time. Hence the boat is swayed, first, one way, then, in an 
opposite direction, instead of gaining a peaceful harbor, pro¬ 
tected from storms and tempest blasts. 

Progressive Infirmities. 

After awhile the husband begins to exhibit the infirmities of 
age. Besides, he has gradually established certain fixed rules 
which, in his long experience, are considered fundamental 
principles necessary for repose, for propriety, for happiness; 
and it very much rufiles and disgusts him, too, if others refuse 
to conform to the routine of regulations he resolves to establish 
in his own household. 

Madam entertains widely different views of the subject. 
She comments upon his propositions as either preposterous, 
ridiculous, or arbitrary. He makes no allowance for' more 
youthful feelings, while the wife, on the other hand, makes 
no eifort to conceal her dissatisfaction in being obliged to humor 
the caprices of old age. 

Matrimonial Bickerings, 

■With occasional cutting remarks to the discomfiture of 
both, the spirit of division obtains a foothold. An old husband 
of a young wife never inspires her with reverence for his bald 
head or gray hairs. Love never was an element in the original 
arrangement. Both were deceived in supposing they were 
made for each other. 

An old manway have wisdom, judgment, and a handsome 
estate, but he cannot inspire love and the warmth of affection 


452 


THE WAYS OF WOME^" 


in a girl twenty or thirty years younger than himself. She 
feels no sense of companionship in his society. 

While an old husband is deteriorating, and closing gradually 
into smaller compass, the young wife is developing into the ful¬ 
ness of commanding womanhood. 

Reverse the circumstances. * The wife being advanced, no 
longer throwing off those magnetiq influences which are the 
bonds of attraction, a want is felt; but what it is, words cannot 
properly express. It is a sympathy only to be engendered 
between those nearly of the same age. 

An aged wife, the senior of the husband ten or fifteen years, 
may be a model woman in the management of her domestic 
duties, prudent and eminently discreet; yet they do not har¬ 
monize, though both are good and true. 

When nearly of the same age, their views, feelings, and 
opinions keep pace on the same vital plane. One rarely acts 
without the other in anything of importance, or suggests a 
measure which would not be of mutual benefit. 

CojfGEJ^^IALITY. 

There is a complete oneness with them, when appropriately 
brought together. That is matrimonial happiness which we 
read about, but do not as often witness in real life as might be 
expected in a Christian country. 

True unity of soul is the foundation of all the felicity fouifd 
in marriage. In that delightful realization of what actually 
belongs to marital relations, of which affection is the bond of 
union, one party has not a longer expectation of life than the 
other,—an unconscious harmony which, nevertheless, has a 
direct influence on their mental and physical organization. 

With such a pleasant preparation for travelling together on 
the highway of coming years, marriage is a divine institution. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


453 


Two mercliants of nearly the same age agree together far 
better in their business affairs, than when there is considerable 
difference in their probable tenure of life—all other things 
being equal. 

Commercial Relations. 

Some of the oldest and strongest commercial houses were 
established by youthful partners, whose plans, operations, and 
methods of conducting their enterprises were results of seeing 
objects from the beginning alike, because both were alike im¬ 
pressed by the same surrounding influences. 

Old capitalists in business rarely proceed so smoothly with 
a young man as wdth one of their own age. A reason is sought 
for in that natural law of corresponderice which is recognized 
in various relations, but which is extremely difficult to eluci¬ 
date. There is a parallelism in thought, in reasoning processes, 
and a unity of feeling, in those of nearly the same age. Having 
lived about the same number of years, they reckon from the 
same events and epochs. 

Children Require the Society of Children. 

Children require the companionship of children. They 
never establish the same kind of familiarity with grown-up 
persons as they do with those of their own mental calibre. 

Impressions from common objects strike them differently. 
The conversation of an infant is insipid to a man of years, while 
the chat of the latter is totally beyond the comprehension of a 
little prattler at his elbow. 

Domesticated animals, to an observable degree, are influ¬ 
enced by the same law of association. An old ox takes no 
interest in a calf, but lows at the sight of a distant herd. Old 


454 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


dogs liardly tolei^ate tlie pranks of puppies. Cows covet the 
company of cows, and old singing-bii'ds appear to have pleasui’e 
in the society of those similar to themselves. 

Companionship of Animals. 

Some animals form a warm attachment for each other, pro¬ 
vided they have been a considerable while together; but they are 
not particular in expressions of friendship, if they associate late 
in life. 

Coach-horses, after having been accustomed to work in the 
same carriage, upon beipg put in adjoining stalls, become exces¬ 
sively uneasy when separated, and exhibit gratification in their 
whinnyings of recognition in being again harnessed in the old 
way. 

Two cows pastured in the same field, or stalled in the same 
stable, or two oxen accustomed to the same yoke, exhibit very 
decided uneasiness on being separated. Their nervous watch¬ 
fulness, vigilance, and frequent calls at the top of their voice, is 
a language that denotes the violence done to their attachment 
to an old friend. 

A young weaned colt cares but little for a sedate horse; nor 
does a spavined hack in a dirt-cart covet the society of antic 
nags, even when at large in a broad enclosure. Kittens are 
repulsed by sober cats. They may tolerate their presence ; but 
when they begin to take liberties in their mischievous capers, a 
growl, or a blow with a sharp claw admonishes them not to 
presume upon the gravity of their seniors. 

Reptiles without Attachment. 

Reptiles do not appear to possess social feelings. Neither 
do voracious fishes, as sharks, wolffish, etc. On the contrary, 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


455 


cod, haddock, mackerel, and many other tribes are sociable, and 
range in company over their feediag-ground, and migrate in 
immense armies for mutual protection and society. 

Whales are social in their nature, also, as porpoises are; 
both swimming amicably together in their pastimes, or in 
pursuit of food. 

Whales, after all, are not fish. They belong to the niani- 
malia. They breathe air exclusively, and suckle their young. 

When aged men or women advanced in the vale of years 
marry those younger than themselves by many years, it is not 
only a gross mistake, but it is also a violation of a natural law. 
It is as true in social science as in homoeopathy, that like cures 
like. In other words, a condition in age, experience, and force 
of vitality, is essential to that happiness which is the incentive 
for assuming the legal and all other responsibilities appertain¬ 
ing to marriage. Discrepancies in those respects are sure to 
eventuate in certain disappointment and marital wretchedness, 
where neither one is infiuenced by a highly developed religious 
sentiment of accountability. 

Who can doubt that the friction of a wounded spirit, chafed 
and fretted by an uncongenial marriage, must be productive of 
intensified mental miserj^ ? 

Who does not believe, also, that where a man and woman of 
suitable age, of cultivated intellect, refined in character, are lov¬ 
ingly united, they will find all that calm, ennobling realization 
of their expectations in that relation ? 

In a felicitous marriage, longevity is promoted, health is bet¬ 
ter secured, and if heaven is ‘ever found on earth, it is in the 
home of such a family. 


456 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


Indiscreet Marriages. 

When a young woman marries an aged man, she perils her 
health,—^possibly, her life. He will improve, because his sys¬ 
tem will imbibe her vitality. If some ladies have sufficient vi¬ 
tality accumulating, to bear the draft of what may be called ab¬ 
sorption of life, a few years, they may outlive the old husband. 
Ten fall by the way, however, where one survives. 

And in thoSe cases, if it could be fairly explained how she 
escaped the penalty of a violated law, it would unquestionably 
be due to an estrangement,—protecting herself by not being 
within the reach or magnetic conducting force of the body 
which 'would otherwise have received her vitality. 

Eeverse the conditions, and a young man would peril him¬ 
self precisely in the same way. 

Such are the mainsprings of life, subtle and incomprehensi¬ 
ble, but tliey are the laws that influence and govern humanity 
in every country. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 


The Longevity of Womeh. 

Life a Precious Boon—Modifications of tlie Penal Code—Experiments—Mind 

Independent of Body—Suicide a Crime—Women in tlieir Desperation—; 

Women Live Longer than Men—Have Better Habits—Life Limitation 

—Pulse—Life Insurance Positions—As Cultivators. 

A DREAD of deatli is implanted in every liiiman breast. 
Even creeping insects have an instinctive apprehension of fatal 
consequences, attending exposures to superior force. 

A small animal is in fear of a large one. It is a feeling 
that cannot be overcome, because it is incorporated with tbeir 
nature as a safeguard to inspire vigilance for self-preservation. 
Otherwise, unapprehensive of impending dangers, and regard¬ 
less of consequences from a relaxation of that sentinel sense, 
they, and man too, with all his calculating faculties, seeing the 
end from the beginning, in his reasoning from cause to effect, 
would heedlessly plunge into a vortex where certain destruction 
was inevitable, as he would lie* down upon a soft couch for 
repose. 

Life is a boon too precious to be neglected, or carelessly 
thrown away. It is an imperative duty to live as long as we 
can, and in all Christian nations it is considered a crime to volun¬ 
tarily destroy ourselves or others. 

A doctrine is obtaining rapidly, the advocates of which are 
already numerous, that God, who gave life, has alone the right 
to take it away. 

Yery marked modifications of the penal code have not only 
29 ^ 


458 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


already been effected tbrougli the spreading influence of disbe¬ 
lievers, in the necessity or right to inflict capital punishment, 
and still further alterations may be anticipated. 

Starting with that proposition, relaxing the severities of 
punisliment for several very common dimes within the last few 
years,—they are not as frequent as they were. A further re¬ 
duction of legal cruelties, unworthy an age of elevated Chris¬ 
tian advancement, will prove a surer remedy than hanging on a 
gallows. 

Extreme cases, characterized by atrocious barbarities, and 
premeditated wickedness of the perpetrator, should be placed 
beyond the control of executive pardoning powers. A perpet¬ 
ual imprisonment, wholly and entirely beyond the reach of a 
governor or a president, would be so terrific as to restrain those 
who have entertained an expectation of freedom at last, even 
under a life sentence. 

Perpetual incarceration, without the possibility of ever being 
again restored to freedom, would be dreaded far more intensely 
by great criminals, than a public execution. 

When it was announced to the first murderer that, instead 
of being put to death, he should live, and seven-fold vengeance 
be the penalty of any one who injured him,—a mark being 
fixed on his person that he might be recognized as under an 
awful sentence, the wretched Cain exclaimed that his punish¬ 
ment was greater than he could bear. 

Inquisitive physiological experimenters have interrogated 
nature with a view to ascertaining whether life departs in¬ 
stantaneously with a stoppage of the vital machineiy. 

When a person has been shot through the head, heart, or 
the solar or semi-lunar plexuses in front of the spine below the 
diaphragm, does consciousness linger awhile and then gradu¬ 
ally take a final departure, or is death instantaneous ? 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


459 


Every muscle lias a special life endowment of its own, quite 
independent of tlie will. After being lacerated, and, indeed, 
after being separated from its connections, while there is con¬ 
tractility remaining, there is life in it. 

Chemical decomiiosition is the only certain evidence of 
death. 

The conscious soul exhibits its peculiar properties through 
the instrumentality of an organized body. In drowning, con¬ 
siderable time evidently elapses before life is extinct. Re¬ 
markable cases of suspended animation incontestably prove 
that, if the soul had departed on its never-ending mission to 
eternity, it was actually recalled back again by the appliances 
of art. 

In drowning, the union of body and mind is gradually dis¬ 
solved ; but it may be interrupted and death prevented, by 
manipulations that set the vital machinery again in motion. 

The mind, therefore, is there for a while; and it is probable 
the same condition exists in decapitations. But violence inflicted 
on those highly-vitalized instruments by which it manifests 
itself in life, is a shock dissolving instantly the connection 
between body and mind.- 

With the escape of arterial blood in a gash, in cutting sud¬ 
denly through the neck, the brain is deprived of the material 
it must have to act at all; and hence death speedily follows, 
though there may be an instant or two of distinct conscious¬ 
ness. The Paris smarts represent a decapitated head as em 
gaged in thinking for a short space of time, deprived of the 
ability of expressing its wishes. 

There are conditions in which all are cowards. Men may 
fight bravely, face the king of terrors at the muzzle, of a 
cannon ; but, when raising a weapon for destroying their own 
lives, it is with fear and trembling. 


460 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


If ever suicide is accomplislied with a firiUj uniliiiching will 
and a steady hand, it is charitable to suppose the individual 
absolutely insane; because the act is a notorious violation of 
the strongest instinct of his nature. ■ 

A\^omen in their distraction wildly perform deeds of 
desperation against themselves. They leap into abysses of 
misery to avoid a foreseen disgrace. hTothing so nerves them 
to face the dreadful alternative of death or shame, as cpiestion- 
ing their moral purity. What is life to them without the con¬ 
sciousness of unsullied virtue ? 

That is the question with a woman nurtured in a religious 
belief of rewards and punishments in a future state ; and hence, 
among professing Christians, examples of self-destruction of fe¬ 
males are more common than in pagan or Mahometan countries. 

Pagan and Mahometan women rarely commit suicide. 
Education, therefore, shapes' the mind, and plants deep down in 
the recesses of the heart, those principles which both govern 
and direct them in their social intercourse. 

Whatever is instilled into the mental constitution of the 
girl remains there through all the meanderings of after years : 
so* certain is it that, as the twig is bent, so the tree inclines. 

Inquiries into the physical* signs of longevity in man fully 
confirm the opinion that women, on an average, live longer 
than men.^ 

They are less exposed to dangers which sweep off men and 

* Professor Faraday lias given it as liis opinion tliat all who die before 
they are a hundred years old, may be justly charged with self-murder ; that 
Providence, having originally intended man to live a century, would allow 
him to do so if he did not kill himself by eating unwholesome food, allow¬ 
ing himself to be annoyed by trifles, giving license to passion and exposing 
himself to accident. The French smart, Flourin, advanced the theory that 
the duration of life is measured by the time of growth. When the bones’ 
epiphysis are united, the body grows no more, and it is at twenty years that 
this union is effected in man. The natural termination of life is five re- 
niDves from the several points. Man, being twenty years in growing, lives, 





THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


461 


boys at sea, in armies, mines, manufacturing establishments at¬ 
tended with perils, as the making of gunpowder, explosive 
cotton, nitro-glycerine; and in various circumstances of peculiar 
contingencies, to which females are rarely, if ever, subjected. 

Then again, women, as a body, always have better habits, 
and better morals,—a sentiment often repeated in the pages of 
this volume. Their vitality is nat wasted in midnight carousals, 
nor are they guilty of enervating vices, which kill off men 
frightfully fast, of which little is known out .of the confidential 
circle of the medical profession. 

They commence life under more favorable circumstances, in 
some respects, in regard to the preservation of health, which 
thousands of them fritter away prematurely, in coming into 
womanhood. Still, more women live to very old age than men. 

An examination of a family’s necrological record, if care¬ 
fully kept, discloses some curious facts illustrative of the tena¬ 
city of life in females wh'o have escaped the tortures imposed 
upon the fashionable sisterhood.- 

Constant practice in the examination of applicants for life 
insurance has enabled medical examiners to arrive at certain 
interesting conclusions respecting the death period of women, 
wdiich had escaped notice before those investigations were 
instituted. 

Limited as may be our knowledge of vital force, enough has 
been ascertained for the construction of tables of expectances. 
That is, if a person has arrived at any particular age, it is 
expected he or she may live a certain number of years from 
that date. 

Physicians make mistakes in their estimates of the value of 
life, as well as others not supposed to be a s well informed in 

or sliould, five times twenty years ; the camel is eight years in growing, and 
lives five times eight years; the horse is five years in growing, and lives 
twenty-five years, and so on with other animals. 




4G2 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


regard to tlie probabilities of life; but tbev are progressing, 
becoming more.critical, and more accurate also, in their investi¬ 
gations. Their ears and the sense of touch are being educated 
with reference to discriminating, with precision, between normal 
and abnormal sounds of the heart. When careful in their 
examinations, it is surprising with what success and readiness 
they detect irregularities in the circulation, that would escape 
the attention of those inexperienced in those pursuits. 

Unfavorable conditions of the heart, the lungs, kidneys, etc., 
require a very nice perception of variations from their action in 
health or disease. 

Those organs are exceedingly over-worked, and, therefore, 
driven into a degree of unnatural activity by the habits, bad 
customs, imagined business demands, and vices of the times; 
and tlie consequence is, an increased mortality from those 
sources, quite rare among our old-fashioned ancestors, who pro¬ 
ceeded with moderation in their atfairs. 

A hurried pulse, far above the ordinary beats of the heart, 
when the expenditure of vital force is in equipoise with the 
ratio of supply, tends to injury. We are constituted for excite¬ 
ments. If not too long continued, no injury accrues. But 
when the tension is kept up continuously, too' long, the next 
phase is debility. 

A preparation for being examined for a life policy some- * 
times quickens the pulse exceedingly ; and one not accustomed 
•to the sudden changes which emotions of the mind may produce, 
is liable to grave mistakes. 

Medical gentlemen are occasionally blamed for mistakes, as 
though they were, or at least ought to be, infallible, when in 
the service of insurance institutions, trust companies, and the 
like, where professional opinions are required in granting their 
hivors. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


463 


Those who have passed through a tedious professional pre¬ 
paration for being eminently qualihed to discriminate one sound 
from another, or determine by pressure at the tip of a finger, 
whether an applicant for life insurance may live ten years, or 
expire, in all human probability, in ten days, are attended with 
painful anxieties, and environed by more responsibilities than 
officers of such institutions recognize. 

Unfortunately, for the honor of the medical profession, the 
qualifications of medical officers are decided upon by persons 
wlio have not the requisite knowledge of the value of science 
for guiding them in a choice. A blockhead is quite as often 
chosen to a responsible professional position, as a man of 
superior attainments. A pecuniary influence, or relationship to 
one of the directors or an influential stockholder, may decide an 
appointment. Is merit ignored ? This declaration is abund¬ 
antly sustained in looking at the names of some who are the 
best bowers of many life-offices, but who could not pass an 
examination for the position of a village pedagogue. 

Admitting the capacity of women for occupying all places, 
and for engaging in almost all pursuits heretofore considered 
the special properties of men, the further we proceed the more 
openings seem to present for them. 

It is not desirable that they should unsex themselves for the 
sake of employments which in ages past have been denied them. 
It is by no means necessary that they should ride a horse like a 
moss-trooper, tend saw-mills, hew stone, labor in quarries, coal¬ 
mines, iron-foundries, or go where their presence would be 
inappropriate. 

Women may be admirable gardeners, florists, fruit-growers, 
wool-raisers, cultivate vineyards, or, indeed, as many of them 
do, carry on extensive farming operations. Fruits have always 
commanded good prices ; the demand, thus far, has been greater 
than the supply. They are wanted everywhere. 


464 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


Having a natural aptitude for horticultural industry, and a 
delicate taste in selecting and directing, what fortunes are in 
reserve for those who early embark in those employments 1 

Berries, poultry, honey-bees, piscatory economy, all of which 
may be conducted on a few acres of ground, present an inviting 
field for the display of female energy, enterprise, and praise¬ 
worthy example. 

Women need not necessarily lose caste among the refined of 
their own sex, become rough in manner, or demoralized by 
coming in contact with mother earth. Their figures will 
neither become gross, their features less attractive, their charms 
deteriorate, or their beauty fade any sooner for identifying 
themselves with the culture of fruits, flowers, wheat, or wmol. 

People will have luxuries if they go without necessaries. 
Among profitable pursuits for females, requiring neither un¬ 
pleasant associations nor hard labor, is honey-making. One 
woman could easily manage one hundred hives. Even one, not 
occupying a square yard of ground, would supply thirty, forty, 
and up to sixty pounds of honey in a single season, if cai'efully 
superintended. 

Let one thousand females embark in apiarian enteiq)rises any- 
wliere, and without the least regard to the quality of the soil or 
its capacity for yielding flowers. Bees collect honey from great 
distances, and store it wherever we direct. AYhat wealth would 
be accumulated by that one thousand operators in honey I 

There are more flowers in yards, windows, open conserva¬ 
tories, parks, and highways in most cities, than in four times 
the same area of land in the country. Even if there were not, 
a single flower within five miles of an apiary would be found 
and regularly visited by city bees. Therefore, rear them in 
cities if the cultivator has a stationary home. 

The experiment has been tried, and crowned with entire 




WOMEN OF THE FIELD 


















































































































































































\ 

1 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


465 


siiccesSj even when the hive was kept within a cool part of the 
building, and the foraging insects went out and in through 
walls. 

Throughout the country there is not a poor widow, a forlorn 
spinster, or an idle woman, who cannot descend to pursuits be¬ 
low the estimate she places upon her social position, who might 
not have a pleasant revenue from this delightful employment 
of honey-raising. 

Throughout continental Europe, peasant women are ac¬ 
customed to labor in the field side by side with men. They 
have the same organic structure, functional peculiarities, in¬ 
stincts, and necessities of the most elevated of the sex, yet they 
are quite overlooked in researches for physical signs of incapa¬ 
city for such lives as they lead. 

Because women can endure hardships, can labor, lift, dig, 
saw, carry burdens, and drive teams, it is not an argument in 
favor of obliging them to do so, neither does it accord with our 
civilization not to attempt relieving them. 

Studying their condition at every step, from the lowest to 
the highest round in the ascending ladder of life, in all countries, 
the conclusion arrived at, in reference to their longevity, is 
this: that more women live beyond a century than men, their 
circumstances, ceteris jparihus^ being equaL Both, however, 
in communities most distinguished for culture and intelli¬ 
gence, fall far short of the years they would have attained to, 
had they not violated many immutable laws of health. 

Public registers abound with notices of men and women 
who have lived far beyond the supposed ordinary limit of 
human life, on the presumption that threescore and ten is the 
doomed measure of our days. 

The more quiet, unobtrusive, and less exposed w^ay of life of 
women is favorable to their longevity. They are rarely sub- 
30 


466 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


jected to tliose sudden assaults upon the constitution, those fric¬ 
tions of a rude world, or those personal contentions, which 
wear away men. As they are rarely exposed to storms, or 
called upon to test the strength of their muscles, or perplex 
their brains with problems and difficulties which break down 
strong men prematurely, their chance for prolonged life is 
better. 

Individuals pass through dreadful trials of body and mind, 
and thousands of females throng madhouses, the yictims of 
cruelty and* oppression; but, as a whole, the expectation of 
life is altogether in their favor. 

Women are less corrupt than men, even when wickedly 
debased by vicious associations. They think less evil, avoid 
polluting influences, and thus are secured from many direct 
causes of premature death. 

A¥ere it not for wandering too far into the regions of 
antiquity, illustrations of prevailing opinions, that females had 
a peculiar tenacity of life, might be gathered. ' But we ascribe 
what in the olden time was thought an extraordinary endow¬ 
ment of vitality, to their habitual sobriety, propriety, and 
happy exemption*from turmoils and excitements that wear out 
men. 

The book of Genesis gives a narrative of the old age of 
Sarah, and a remarkable physiological revolution in her system, 
perhaps hardly ever ^paralleled since. Becoming a mother in 
extreme old age, is by no means a common occurrence.* 


* Mr. W. J. Thoms’ new book, “ Human Longevity : Its Facts and its 
Fictions,” demolishes the pretensions of many of the marvellous “ old men’* 
of tradition to have lived a century and upward. He clearly proves that 
Old Parr,” Jenkins, and the Countess of Besmond, who are reputed to have 
survived to 140 or upward, are cases of longevity resting upon no positive 
evidence. He demonstrates that the ages of a more modern series of cen¬ 
tenarians were as follows —Mary Billinge, not 112, .but 91; Jonathan 



THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


467 


Erytliea, the Sybil, says that Phlegon lived ten hundred 
years. In the writings of Matthew Paris, it is asserted that the - 
Wandering Jew was recognized in 1229. Next, copying the 
story of a man who, at the age of three hundred and thirty- 
five, was brought into the' august presence of Lopez de Caste- 
nada, while viceroy of India, and similar extravagant legends, 
a formidable array of strange biographies might be collected. 
They are of no value, being curiosities of Jiistory, once believed 
to be true, when a few monks wrote for the astonishment of 
ignorant, superstitious millions. 

Whether persons in modern times have attained patriarchal 
longevity, admits of a reasonable doubt. However, there are 
exceptions to general laws; and whenever a man or a woman 
passes beyond one hundred years, their vitality must have been 
remarkable. 

Henry Jenkins, who in his twelfth year led a horse laden 
with arrows to the battlefield of Plodden, reached the age 
of one hundred and sixty years. This case seems well authen¬ 
ticated, as the record of his burial by a national subscription 
gave extensive notoriety to his extraordinary longevity. 

Thomas Parr died at one hundred and fiftydwo. He w^as 
buried in Westminster Abbey. That circumstance shows the 
deep public interest-in the fact that he had reached an*age that * 
created universal surprise, and, therefore, he was entombed 
within the sacred edifice, where none but memorable persons 
were honored in death. 

Reeves, not 104, but 80; Mary Downton, not 106, but 100; Joshua Miller, 
not 111, but 90 ; George Fletcher, not 108, but 92; George Smith, not 105, 
but 95 ; Edward Couch, not 110, but 95 ; William Webb, not 105, but 95 ; 
John Da we, not 116, but. 8^ ; George Brewer, not 106, but 98 ; Mary Hicks, 
not 104, but 97. Besides these, a few other cases are introduced, of which 
all that the author can show is, that there is no convincing evidence of the 
asserted age.—He admits only two as pfoven out of the long roll of news* 
paper centenarians. We have facts to confute Mr. Thom. 



468 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


When Philip d’llerbelot was one hundred and fourteen, he 
presented a bouquet to Louis XIY. on his birthday. “ What 
have you done,” asked his majesty, “ to have reached so great 
an age?” The old man replied, being then a government pen¬ 
sioner, ‘‘ From the age of fifty, please your majesty, I have 
shut my heart and opened my cellar.” 

While the National Assembly of France was in session, 
October 23d, 1789, ay man at the age of one hundred and 
twenty was announced. All the members rose as he entered. 
Amidst a whirlwind of applause he walked to an arm-chair in 
front of the secretaj'ies. lie then pi-esented a certificate of his 
baptism, proving his birth at St. Sobin, October 10, 1669. By 
manual labor he had supported himself till the expiration of a 
century. A pension of two hundred livres per annum was then 
granted by the king. A contribution was voted him, and the 
old man was lodged at the .public expense in the Patriotic 
School. Pupils of all ranks waited upon him. 

When Napoleon I. was first consul, he decorated two men 
on the same occasion, who were one hundred years old, before 
an immense concourse of people. 

At an inauguration of an equestrian statue of Louis XIY., 
at the Palace of Yictories, Aug. 20, 1822, Pierre Huet, called 
the father of the French army, was preseiit,—being one hun¬ 
dred and sixteen. His countenance was venerable, his voice 
sonorous, and a flowing white beard gave dignity to his appear¬ 
ance. He had been a cotemporary of the king, whose reign the 
Bourbon dynasty were commemorating. 

Dr. Barnes, of Edinburgh, gives a narrative of Eobert 
Boman, in the Philosophical Journal of that city, who lived to 
be one hundred and fifteen. He distinctly remembered the re¬ 
bellion of 1714. Among other curious recollections, he re¬ 
membered when barley was three shillings for a Carlisle bushel; 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


4C9 


oats, eigliteen pence; butter, three pence a pound ; and eggs, a 
penny a dozen. His food had b6en principally milk, but he 
partook of whatever food was prepared for the family. Nei¬ 
ther tea, cotfee, or -tobacco was ever used by him. When hun¬ 
gry, he ate; retired early to bed, when sleepj^, but had no fixed 
habits. 

The foregoing cases of extreme longevity have been cited 
to show that well authenticated cases are numerous, of life be¬ 
ing prolonged beyond a century, which has been questioned 
very frequently of late. But a few only, one in millions upon 
millions, have had such vitality. 

We could show, with equal certainty, that more females 
have reached an uncommon longevity than males. A very-few 
have considerably passed one hundred years, one hundred and 
ten, one hundred and twenty; and the Countess of Desmond, 
one hundred and forty-two! 

in the course of one century, one man in many millions 
may arrive at the age of one hundred years, while within the 
same period more women live to a full century than men. 

Among the Pension, Office records, at Washington, on a list 
of twenty-one surviving soldiers of the Bevolution, a few years 
since, eighteen of them had reached 100 years, and upwards. 
There were five who were passed 101; four, 102; two, 103; 
tw^o, 105 ; two, 106, and one, 109. 

In the catalogue of widows of revolutionary soldiers, draw¬ 
ing pensions, there were twentj^ who were 100 years old, and 
eleven wdio were 97. Dinah Yick, at Hashville, Tenn., died 
1871, at the age of 109. The oldest person drawing a pension 
was Chloa Platford, Virginia, who died at 116. The next per¬ 
son was Charity Flindman, of AYest Virginia, who was 112. 

The Southern States offer more examples of extreme lon¬ 
gevity than the Northern. Mrs. McDonald, of Tennessee, died 


470 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


at 106; Mrs. Shaw, of New Orleans, at 107; Mrs. Thrasher, of 
Georgia, 103; Mrs. Trucker, of N. Carolina, 109, and Mrs. 
Harris, of Georgia, 101.* 

Were it possible, at this moment, to gather a catalogue of 
the oldest persons, now living, the largest number of the whole 
would probably be females. 

No particular system of diet is superior to another, accord¬ 
ing to the histories of those who have had such long leases of 
life. 

There is another chronicle of men and women who have vio¬ 
lated all the common laws of health, having been as irregular 
and erratic as the wind, whose longevity equalled those who 
■ conformed to all the requirements of a well-regulated life. 

Donald McDonald, about forty years ago, was sent to tHe 
House of Correction, in Boston, because he was intemperate 
and quarrelsome, being then one hundred and seven years old! 
His father died in Scotland at the age of one hundred and 
thirty-seven, in consequence of an injury to the spine, by fall¬ 
ing down stairs. 

. Who can doubt the transmission of vitality or vital force 
from parent to child ? 

Undoubtedly, the death rate is accelerated by intemperance 
in this and all other countries. We are already called a nation 
of drunkards, by those who have not had the good fortune to 
become acquainted with the best specimens of American so¬ 
ciety. The vice of intemperance is deeply rooted in the con¬ 
stitution of so many, that its baneful and destroying influence 
taints the blood of those who derive their being from such 
polluted sources. 

* Huger, a colored woman, recently died near Alexandria, Ky., at the age 
of 122. She was horn in Virginia, March 21, 1751. She had been blind 
twenty years. Her memory was good. She was presumed to be the oldest 
person in tl^ United States. 



THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


471 


Keitlier legislation, moral suasion, nor temperance reformers 
liave gained much success in their efforts to stay the progress of 
that dreadful vice. There are temporary lulls and loud expres¬ 
sions of enthusiasm when some newly-devised schemes for re¬ 
form are proposed, Alas! neither the beauties of sobriety, nor 
the horrors of a prison make any lasting impression on the case- 
hardened brains of inebriates. Their morbid thirst is a disease 
beyomi the resources of medicine, in its present imperfect 
state. 

There are persons so organized, they crave unusual excite¬ 
ment. Their temperaments cannot be kept in'equilibrium with 
cold water. They will hazard reputation, and even life, for in¬ 
dulgence. The sober-minded are taxed for the support of va¬ 
gabonds and criminals, who were made such by intemperance. 

There is one untried remedy. When mild wines are cheaper 
than beer, ale, whiskey, and brain-crazing cordials, those who 
look upon wine as a luxury beyond their reach wdll prefer it. 
Then intemperance will be less frequent, and a new condition 
of society may be anticipated, most gratifying to philanthro¬ 
pists, to Christian laborers, in the midst of wide-spread vice 
and dissipation, but not before. 

Wine can be made in sufficient quantities to root out the 
undermining destruction of distilleries. California, alone, has 
more than sufficient for the remedy—but it must be cheaper. 

• Give those who are maddened by strong potations some¬ 
thing superior to meet the demands of a morbid craving, and 
in fifty years the public sentiment will sustain this proposi¬ 
tion. 

Looking to an extended tenure of human life, by conform¬ 
ing more understandingly to the laws of health, wdiich are be¬ 
ing better understood through the active influence ot the press, 
and wdien women rise-to that social elevation they are to have, 


472 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


longevity will not be regarded as a wonder, as it bas been, but 
a natural consequence of conforming to those principles which 
science demonstrates to be the way to health and long life.* 

* The last census presents tlie following curious facts : 

The total population of the country is about 38,250,000. 

Total number of deaths in the current census year, 492,263, or about 1,349 
per diem. 

^March seems to be the most fatal mouth, leading all others by about 1,000. 
March, April, and May form the most fatal quarter, exceeding any other 
three consecutive months by over 13,000. 

The births number 1,100,475, or about 3,000 jper diem. 

The blind number about 20,000. 

The deaf and dumb about 16,000. 

The idiotic about 24,000. 

The insane about 37,000, neaidy one-third of whom are of foreign birth. 

Persons over 80 years of age number about 150,000. 

Persons over 90 years of age number about 7,000. 

Persons over 100 years of age number about 3,500. 

Of those over 90 years, the females are in excess by about 1,200. 

Of those over 100 years, the females exceed the males by about 1,000. 




CHAPTER XXXYin. 


Their Future ik the IJhited States. 

Women Considered in Law—Political Status—Mixed Schools—^Vulgar 
Men—The Evidence of Low Breeding—Schools for Separating Girls and 
Boys—Russian Apprehension—Annual Teapot Tempests—School Im¬ 
provements—Political Equality of the Sexes. 

In every period of human history, women have been con¬ 
sidered inferior to men. All laws for the regulation of society 
have invariably been so framed as to perpetuate the absurd idea, 
that they have neither capacity nor a right to participate in 
concerns of common interest, which tradition, custom, and the 
sovereign power exclusively confide to male members of the 
community. 

Among savages and barbarians, where that theory must have 
originated, females are estimated as necessary appendages, but 
not equals. Before the spread of Christianity their condition, 
even under the most favorable aspect, was that of slavery. All 
that has been accomplished for their elevation, and protection 
in the enjoyment of privileges,—such as they are, even in the 
most enlightened states of Europe and the United States,—is 
due to the influence of Christianity. 

Women will rise higher, and be sustained in their claims to 
an equal share of whatever contributes most to the security, 
happiness, and progress in the world, in proportion to the heed 
given to those divine truths which were revealed and inculcated 
by our Lord and Saviour. 

There have been fortunate individuals among women in all 

ages. Sorhe were born to renown. Very few of them have 

30 * 


474 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


reached political distinction by the mere exercise of superior 
skill or intelligence,—and simply because barriers were inter¬ 
posed between them and the objects of their ambition by the craf¬ 
tiness of men. When they have held the reins of government 
by hereditary claims that could not be set aside, they have in¬ 
variably exhibited qualities that incontestably proved they were 
not inferior to kings. 

ISTotwithstanding the Queen can do no wrong under the 
Constitution of Great Britain,—the laws of England take cog¬ 
nizance of a fearful array of illegal acts which her female sub¬ 
jects may commit, and are punished for, without troubling men 
of low degree, who are guilty of betraying them and destroying 
their prospects and happiness. 

A husband may cruelly abuse his own wife, bone of his 
bone and flesh of his flesh, and yet she has no redress, or next 
to none, in one of the most enlightened countries on the globe. 
How much better is it here ? 

What does it amount to towards securing better treat¬ 
ment, by putting an infamous, drunken husband under bonds 
in the sum of seventy-flve cents, to keep the peace, wdio re¬ 
turns home from the police office and breaks his wife’s ribs 
in revenge for having his conduct exposed in court ? 

A woman is by law held to be inferior to a man in this 
blessed American Union. While single, she is manager of her 
own property; but the moment of entering upon the holy state 
of matrimony, her individuality is lost. She is then Mrs. Ho- 
body in all legal transactions. 

As a spinster, she is compelled to pay taxes, can be assessed 
for public expenditures which do not meet her approbation, but 
she is not allowed to vote for officers placed in authority over 
her, nor is she elegible to any place or position of honor or 
trust under the law. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


475 


Asa married woman, slie loses tlie privilege slie had before 
of deeding away land, making a will, of doing anything, in 
short, which her lord and master forbids. On becoming a 
widow, she regains her suspended privileges, and then buys, 
sells, and bequeathes her estate to whom she chooses. 

Women, certainly, have legal rights here, as wives, but 
tliey are very much mixed and obscured by lawmakers, who 
thus far have contrived to keep the balance of power in their 
own hands.* 

In Turkey, a wife is property. If she does wrong,.the 
husband, as proprietor, is notified, he being accountable for her 
acts. There are no tedious investigations into the particulars of 
the wrong-doing of which she is accused. If, in his estimation, 
punishment should be infiicted, he is both jury, judge, and 
executive officer. The public sympathy is never excited when 
a member of the harem disappears, if the fact is noised abroad, 
because it is nothing that concerns the public. A Turkish 
gentleman may sink a woman once a week in the Eosphorus, 
without disturbing the placidity of her acquaintances or his 
own. 

Women are worse treated where the standard of moral ac¬ 
countability claims to be far above that of the Koran. Turks 
are careful of their’ property. They neither beat, bruise, nor 
maim their wives. They put them to death when the law re¬ 
quires them to protect the community against a repetition of a 
crime of which his property,—his woman, is guilty. That is 
government- economy, and saves the expense of a public 
execution. 

Political Status. 

We believe a woman is man’s equal, and entitled to all • 
privileges and immunities accorded to men by laws made for 


476 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


monopolizing what bj nature and the eternal, unchangeable 
principles of justice, belongs to her, in making fast their own. 

That doctrine is gaining ground rapidly. Until their rights 
are restored, of wUich they have for fifty centuries been de¬ 
prived, civilization cannot be thorough and complete. The 
millennium will commence when that great day of doing as 
we w^ould be done by is ushered in, by acknowledging that 
women are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi¬ 
ness accorded to men, whether they have brain, capacity, moral 
integrity, or not. 

Under no ancient or modern form of government have 
they. ever had accorded to them the privileges to which they 
are entitled. They are of as much importance as men. They 
were created for one another, and must associate. Being 
equals by nature, women should share equally and equitably 
with men in all things. It is only in a republic that a pro¬ 
spect of restoring to them th^ which has been taken, can be ex¬ 
pected. It is rank hypocrisy to boast of republican equality 
when one half the population is exercising all the power, not 
even permitting the voice of the injured party to be heard, 
when the plea is simply in accordance wdth the Constitution, 
that taxation and representation shall go together. 

We are examining a fundamental principle, not because it 
would be a gratification to see half the members of the House 
and Senate at Washington old ladies, alternately taking part in 
debates on great national questions, and then taking snuff. 
There are not many women qualified for those arm-chairs in 
Congress; and if there were, but few vrould consent to be 
associated with such rude, boisterous, uncouth specimens of un¬ 
polished liumanity as are seen there, singularly contrasting with 
gentlemen of talents, learning, and polished manners, who can 
rarely be elected. 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


477 


Women can have equal rights with men, without supposing 
that every one of them will corrupt voters to get themselves 
elected a judge, a member of the City Council, or chief of 
police. Their characteristic honesty and good sense forbids the 
idea, that they would stoop so low as to accept places notorious 
for the corruptions of those usually occupying them in these 
degenerate days of political integrity. 

Mixed Schools. 

Common schools, those elementary, free institutions which 
are the pride of the people, the nurseries of the national mind, 
fountains from whence flows a current which both develops 
and fertilizes every order of intellect, must be sustained, if our 
liberties are to be preserved. 

Throughout the interior of the country, common-school 
pupils are of both sexes. Boys and girls meet on a common 
level, pursue the same studies, and stand in classes together. 
Such are called mixed schools, and they are always the best, 
distinguished for the progress of the scholars, and the care with 
which they are governed. ■* 

Boys by themselves, or' girls in schools exclusively for 
them, are neither so successful in study or discipline, as when 
they are associated in their educational pursuits. Mixed 
schools exert a happy influence on the sexes thus brought into 
relations which reflne their manners, improve their deport¬ 
ment, and lay the foundation for that courtesy, politeness, 
and civility, which gentlemen, with the slightest preten¬ 
sions to good breeding, always manifest in the presence of 
ladies. 

■When a man walks the whole length of a church without* 
removing his hat till he enters the pew, it is quite certain such 


478 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


vulgarity is in consequence of never having had the civilizing 
eyes of girls in a school-room on him, or a sister or mother to 
explain to him that such contempt for the usages of society re¬ 
dounds to his injury. If another strolls through a parlor, in the 
presence of ladies, with his hat on, assuming an air of inde¬ 
pendent nonchalance^ it is another ordinary phase of vulgarity 
common with men who had no early advantages of female 
society. 

Those coarse, foul-mouthed specimens of ignorance and 
presumption, observable in men who pretend to consider 
women their inferiors, simply because they are not in panta¬ 
loons, are to be commiserated for having had no advantages 
accruing from female society in their early years, when impres¬ 
sions would have been lasting. 

They are the men who have disagreeable wives, deserving 
no others. Without circumlocution, it may be assumed as tine, 
that, by associating while young, boys and girls improve and 
polish one another. In large families of brothers and sisters, 
they are usually far in advance of those only sons, or only 
daughters, who are more remarkable for extreme selfishness 
than kindness, suavity, and consideration for others not of their 
kith or kin. 

Unfortunately, the plan of separate schools is prevailing. 
It is a mistake. The old system is the best, and the children 
educated in mixed schools will have the best culture and the 
best morals. 

This view is beginning to be entertained in the higher 
seminaries and universities. Young ladies now enter colleges. 
The idea of educating a woman as men are educated, would 
have been ridiculed once as preposterous. One serious objec¬ 
tion to permitting them to enter, was the shocl^ing demoraliza¬ 
tion and scandal that would follow, from allowing pretty girls 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


479 


and sopliomores to meet in the same recitation-room together, 
attend the usual exercises under professorial instruction, and 
then graduate bachelors,—since no charter provides for a degree 
not conveying to the possessor distinctions belonging to the 
masculine gender. 

All those antiquated objections have been overturned by 
the good sense and intelligence of a new generation, immeasur¬ 
ably in advance of the buckram of fifty years ago. But there 
they are, model students, above reproach, and bright examples 
of what a woman may attain to in the loftiest regions of litera¬ 
ture and technical science. So far from exerting, by their 
presence, a bad influence on frivolous undergraduates, de¬ 
corum is ‘insured where formerly there were boisterous 
displays, and industry, where there was formerly inattention 
and idleness. Young college ladies are a blessing, because 
order, civility, and politeness are in the ascendant when they 
appear. 

We feel much pleased to express, here, our public recogni¬ 
tion of their utility at college in arresting the waves of pro¬ 
fanity, cant expressions, and innuendoes that become epidemic 
where young men are exclusively by themselves, however well 
reared at home. Those indolent youngsters wlio used to 
graduate blockheads, will diminish in number by the admisr 
sion of female classmates. They would be stimulated to far 
greater effort, rather than be eclipsed by their accomplished, 
fascinating inferiors, as women were formerly considered. 
With all the outcry against the claims of women to political 
equality, and the spirited determination of the strong-minded 
representatives of the feminine order for a clear way to the 
polls, there is not the slightest danger from granting them all 
they ask. ISTot one in a thousand would exhibit the slightest 
ambition for positions they were not abundantly qualified 


480 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


for sustaining creditably to themselves and tlie lionor of 
tlieir constituents.* 

Russia is a despotism. Any aspirations there for privileges 
corresponding with the developing intelligence of those female 
students, seem to have alarmed the watch-dogs of the govern¬ 
ment. It is not at all probable they conducted themselves improp¬ 
erly, or abused their educational privileges in the slightest degree. 
If the Minister of Public Instruction is excited by apprehensions 
from the chatty hilarity of a few pretty misses at recess, one 
such anniversary meeting of antiquated spinsters in green 
spectacles, wigs, and bloomers, as proclaim their solemn resolu¬ 
tion to lose the horse or win tlie saddle in New York and 
Boston, would shake that frozen empire from its centre to its 
circumference. But here, where we are used to annual 
explosions of threatened destruction from wind-bags, they only 
create' merriment. The people laugh, the Administration 
laughs, the reformers laugh, also, and then the tempest in the 
teapot, concocted by a few dozens* of old maids to allay their 
nervousness, subsides, to reappear the following season, as 
hybernating animals awake from a winter slumber. 


* The Russian Government has just made a remarkable announcement in 
its otRcial organs relative to the Russian women-students in the University 
of Zurich. During the last two years, says this document, the number of 
young Russian women who study at Zurich has rapidly increased; there are 
now more than a hundred in the University and Polytechnic School in that 
town. It appears that recent developments indicate that these women- 
Students are politicians, revolutionists, radicals, and inclined to free-love, be 
coming by reason of- these things dangerous alike to society, morals; and the 
government. The royal announcement, after reciting many of these facts, 
concludes thus : “ In order to put an end to this abnormal state of things, it 
is hereby announced to all the Russian women who attend the lectures at the 
University and the Polytechnic School of Zurich, that such of them as shall 
continue to attend the above lectures after the first of January, 1874, will not 
be admitted on their return to Russia to any examination, educational estab- 
lishment, or appointment of any kind under the control of the government." 




THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


481 


Young women have gained admission to medical colleges 
and hospitals, both here and in all the principal institutions of 
that kind in Europe, There was a prodigious outcry against 
such impropriety at first. Doors were closed against them by 
the faculty. But the public sentiment was stronger than the 
obstinacy of fossilized professors, and the law compelled objec¬ 
tors to give way to the progress of useful knowledge, to 
unbar the gates and let them enter, sit and learn. 

l^ext, as old cocks crow the young ones learn, says an an¬ 
cient proverb, Half-fiedged medical students pretended they 
felt themselves insulted by the presence of young female 
students, whose purity of character, ladylike deportment, and 
superior culture were a reproach to their own unconcealed 
coarseness, rudeness, and vulgarity. Time soon corrected their 
impressions of the deteriorating effects of the quiet attention of 
feminine intruders, as they saw, to their extreme mortification, 
that the despised new-comers entirely outstripped them over the 
course,—won distinguished honors, and left those self-righteous, 
complacent donkies in the rear. 

Precisely the same conflict, to some extent, has occurred 
here. Both colleges and medical schools have fought bravely 
in a bad cause, to prevent women from participating in educa¬ 
tional advantages which have been too long exclusively con¬ 
sidered the birthright of men. The result has been to 
bring into existence medical colleges for women, and 
more are required. With constantly increasing numbers 
of students, the demand for their professional services the mo¬ 
ment they are qualified, is opening the eyes of the exclusives. 
Quite too late for retrieving lost opportunities, with a certain 
prospect of being outnumbered in attendants, before many 
seasons have passed, they are now relaxing,—unbolting here 

and there a door. Colleges are all discussing the policy of 

31 


482 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


submitting to wliat is ineyitable,—the admission of female 
pupils. Medical schools are losing what they miglit have 
secured,—the honor of educating women to assume higher and 
nobler positions to which they are called by the voice of the 
people. 

School Improyemehts Suggested. 

As no two persojis precisely resemble each other in expres¬ 
sion, so they differ in their mental capacities. That school for 
girls will be best which recognizes this fact by providing liberally, 
as circumstances will allow, for developing and directing the 
predominant faculty of the pupil. 

Reading, writing, grammar, geography, elementary arith¬ 
metic, with some few studies besides, comprises a common 
school education. In cities, where resources are greater than 
in the country, singing is taught; sewing, and, indeed, other 
branches may be taught, supposed to be most necessary for 
qualifying pupils for duties that may devolve upon them in 
adult years. 

Some children, with slight instruction, would excel in 
drawing, others in modelling, their organs of imitation being 
exceedingly active,—craving indulgence. Instrumental music, 
too, should be systematically taught. There are hundreds of 
girls in public schools whose genius remains buried forever, just 
because no proper stimulus to development was ever presented. 
Musical instruments freely distributed among those who have 
a taste for music, accompanied by daily instruction from a com¬ 
petent. teacher, would bring to light many to become distin¬ 
guished performers. It would qualify poor girls to rise socially, 
to earn more with less hard labor, than would otherwise be their 
lot. Every faculty God has blessed them with, should be cul¬ 
tivated. That is what common schools ought to do. When 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


483 


tlie rich are distributing wealth they cannot carry away to a 
world to which they are hastening, rather than give to institu¬ 
tions burdened with funds, why not direct a thousand orders for 
pianos, harps, accordeons, music books, violins, guitars, etc.,- to 
district or other common schools, with an express condition 
they are for the use of poor female scholars, to qualify them 
to become instructors ? That would be a true specimen of 
Christian benevolence. 

Unfortunately for the world, brilliant talents which the 
possessors were unconscious of possessing, often remain unde¬ 
veloped through life, simply because no opportunity for their 
exercise was within reach of the individual. 

IS'o calculations can be made of the amount of buried genius 
that might have been roused into activity with proper appliances 
in early school-days, with systematic assistance for bringing it 
out. It is a duty to assist, to the extent of our means, in the 
cultivation of all the powers with which girls and boys are 
blessed. Without aid, scores struggle on, displaying extra¬ 
ordinary natural gifts that cannot be utilized, because imper¬ 
fectly educated. They know too -much of what is unavailable, 
and not enough in perfection to be instructors in branches for 
which they have a strong natural bias. 

Singing is occasionally taught in a few schools which are so 
fortunate as to be under the care of gentlemen and ladigs who 
appreciate the importance of having kll such branches taught 
as may be turned to a practical purpose. Some admirable 
vocal performers have had their musical talents discovered in 
those exercises, who are now receiving large salaries in church 
choirs. 

Let it be remembered, that a large majority of all the 
children in all the States never have access to other educa¬ 
tional institutions. Therefore let them have all the attention 


484 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


in common schools that their claims entitle them to as public 
beneficiaries. While taking lessons in reading, writing, gram¬ 
mar, arithmetic, etc., as an agreeable recreation, they could be 
taught to play musical instruments, and a conversational famili¬ 
arity with some language besides their own. Severe study, 
long, tedious recitations, committing to memory what they 
cannot comprehend, is not contemplated in this scheme for im¬ 
provement in mixed schools. On the contrary, let them as 
children learn language by the ear, not by grammatical drillings. 
Music must not be taught in that way, because they could not 
read notes if they were not carefully taught the value of each 
character representing a sound. 


Political Equality of the Sexes. 

From a close examination of the great question of the day, 
whether women ought to enjoy the political rights and privi¬ 
leges which men exercise, w^e have arrived at a conclusion they 
are quite as capable as men. 

Four millions of colored* people were emancipated from 
slavery, and all the males above twenty-one years of age became 
voters instanter, F^ow, would there be more risk in granting 
the same political privilege to intelligent, cultivated women ? 

Emigrants from foreign countries, utterly ignorant of our lan¬ 
guage, and certainly so oPthe constitution and laws of the United 
States, in a few months after their arrival become freemen, 
voting, and may be voted for; and yet one-half of the native 
population, whose patriotism, interest, property, and prayers 
for the land of their birth cannot be questioned, are resolutely 
kept under control by the law, as not being as worthy to be 
intrusted with the franchise as ignorant foreigners, half-breed 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


485 


Indians, and negroes who can neither read, write, or know the 
letters of the alphabet. 

Wherever the sexes mingle, in the family, primary, common 
schools, at college, medical institutions, and in society, there is 
most refinement, courtesy, and intelligence. One more ascend¬ 
ing step would place women where they would have political 
equality, or civilization and the genius of Christianity cannot 
progress. , , 

If a concession is to be made to them anywhere, if men are 
ever honest enough to acknowledge the claims of women to 
equal rights in the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, the 
crowning event and the glorious triumph will take place in a 
republic: and God grant that the honor may belong to the 
United States of America! 

The late John Stuart Mill, who dared to speak in favor of 
the elevation of women to higher responsibilities than the 
jealousy of men in the old world are disposed to permit, thus 
reasons:— 

That every step in improvement has been so invariably 
accompanied by a step made in raising the social position of 
women, that historians and philosophers have been led to adopt 
their elevation or debasement as, on the whole, the surest test 
and most correct. measure of the civilization of a people or an 
age. Through all the progressive period of human history, the 
condition of women has been approaching nearer to equality 
with men. 

“ The profoundest knowledge of the laws of the formation 
of character is indispensable to entitle any one to affirm even 
that there is any difference, much more what the difference is, 
between the two sexes, considered as moral and rational beings, 
and sinee no one as yet has that knowledge (for there is hardly 
any subject which, in proportion to its impoi’tance, has been so 


486 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


little studied), no one is thus far entitled to any positive opinioA 
on the subject. 

“ The wife is the actual bond-servant of the husband, no 
less so, as far as legal obligation goes, than slaves commonly so- 
called. Slie vows a life-long obedience to him at the altar, and 
is held to it all through life by law. Casuists may say that the 
obligation of obedience stops short of participation in crime, but 
it certainly extends to everything else. She can do no act what¬ 
ever but by his permission—at least, tacit. She can acquire 
no property but for him; the instant it becomes hers, even if by 
inheritance, it becomes ipso facto his. In this respect the 
wife’s position, under the Common Law of England, is worse 
than that of slaves in many countries. By the Boman law, for 
example, a slave might have his peculium^ which, to a certain 
extent, the law guaranteed to. him for his exclusive use. The 
higher classes in this country have given an analogous advantage 
to their women through special- contracts setting aside the law, 
by conditions of pin-money, etc., since, parental feelings being 
stronger than the class feelings of tbeir own sex, a father gene¬ 
rally prefers his own daughter to a son-in-law, who is a stranger 
to him' By means of settlements, the rich usually contrive to 
withdraw the whole or part of the inherited property of the 
wife from the absolute control of the husband, but they do not 
succeed in keeping it under her own control; the utmost they 
can do only prevents the husband from squandering it, at the 
same time debarring the rightful owner from its use. The 
property is out of the reach of both, and as to the income de¬ 
rived from it, the form of settlement most favorable to the wife 
(that called ^ to her separate use ’) only precludes the husband 
from receiving it instead of her. It must pass thrdugh her 
hands ; but if he takes it from her by personal violence as soon 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 437 

as slie receives it, lie can neither be punished nor compelled to 
restitution*’’ 

Enlightened England 1 Such is the law. Is it, on the 
whole, a whit better among our enlightened selves ? 

In the Westminster Review occurs the following mortify¬ 
ing acknowledgment of injustice towards women. It is true 
enough to make the ears of legislators tingle:— 

This is the wife’s status with respect to her individual in¬ 
terest, and her status in regard to her children is of a piece 
with it. They are called in law the husband’s children, and he 
alone has legal right over them. The wife can do nothing in 
relation to them, except by delegation from him, and, even af¬ 
ter his death, she does not become their guardian unless slie 
has been appointed so by him. 

“ The natural sequence and corollary from the state of things 
here described would be, that since a woman’s whole comfort 
and happiness in life ‘ depend on her finding a good master, 
she should be allowed to change, again and again, until she 
finds one.’ ” 

Here is the opinion of another English thinker, wdio fully 
comprehends a problem that political demagogues neither wish 
to study or understand:— 

Hr. Herbert Spencer, speaking of the rights of women, 
says:—“ Three positions only are open to us. It may be said 
that women have no rights at all; that their rights are not so 
great as those of men ; or that they are' equal to those of men. 

Whoever maintains the first of those dogmas, thut women 
have no rights at all, must show that the Creator intended wo¬ 
men to be wholly at the mercy of men—their happiness, their 
their liberties, their lives, at man’s disposalor^ in other words, 
that they were meant to be treated as creatures of an inferior 
order. Few will have the hardihood to assert this. 


488 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 


“ From the second proposition, that the rights of women are 
not so great as those of men, there immediately arise such 
queries as: If they are not so great, by how much are they 
less ? What is the exact ratio between the legitimate claims of 
the two sexes ? How shall we tell which rights are common to 
both, and where those of the male exceed those of the female ? 
Who can show us a scale that will serve for the apportionment ? 
Or, putting the question practically, it is required to determine, 
by some logical method, whether the Turk is justified in plung¬ 
ing an ofiending Circassian into the Eosphorus? Whether 
the rights of women were violated by the Athenian law, which 
allowed a citizen, under certain circumstances, to sell his 
daughter or sister ? Whether our own statute, which peiTnits a 
man to beat his wife in moderation, and to imprison her in any 
room in his house, is morally defensible ? Whether it is equit¬ 
able that a married woman should be incapable of holding pro¬ 
perty ? Whether a husband may justly take possession of his 
wife’s earnings against her will, as our law allows him to do ? 
—and so forth. These, and a multitude of similar problems, 
present themselves for solution. 

“ In this connection it is also curious to contemplate that the 
only things which women are ordinarily excluded from doing, 
are just those things which they have proved themselves best 
able to do. There is no law or custom in force to prevent a 
woman from writing plays like Shakespeare, or operas like 
Mozart, but there are laws and customs to prevent them from 
embracing a military or political career, and Joan of Arc and 
Queen Elizabeth are historical characters.” 

Profoundly impressed with the importance of manfully aid¬ 
ing and assisting in the great revolution that is to be ultimately 
achieved, we ofier no apology for strengthening our position 
from any available source. Another, transatlantic view of the 


THE WAYS OF WOMEN. 489 

women-question, as it is called, liere introduced, is too sound 
and logical not to gain tlie approval of reasonable men : 

‘‘ Whoso urges the mental inferiority of women, in bar to 
their claim to equal rights with men, may bo met in various 
ways. In the first place, the alleged fact may be disputed. A 
defender of her sex might name many whose achiev^ements in 
government, in science, in literature, and in art, have obtained 
no small share of renown. Powerful and sagacious queens the 
world has seen in plenty, from Zenobia down to the Empresses 
Catherine and Maria Theresa. In the exact sciences, Mrs. 
Somerville, Miss Ilerschel, and Miss Zornlin have gained'ap¬ 
plause ; in political economy. Miss Martineau ; in general philo¬ 
sophy, Madame de Stael; in politics, Madame Poland. Poetry 
has its Tighes, its Hemanses, its Landons, its Brownings; the 
drama, its Joanna Baillies; and fiction, its Austens, Bremers, 
Gores, Dudevants, etc., without end. In sculpture, fame has 
been acquired by a princess; a picture like ‘ The Momentous 
Question ’ is tolerable proof of female capacity for painting; 
and, on the stage, it is certain that women are on a level with 
men, if they do not even bear away the palm. Joining to such 
facts the important consideration, that women have always been, 
and are still, placed at a disadvantage in every department of 
learning, thought, or skill—seeing that they are not admissible 
to the academies and universities in which men get their train¬ 
ing ; that the kind of life they have to look forward to does not 
present so great a range of ambitions; that they are rarely ex¬ 
posed to that most powerful of all stimulants—necessity; that 
the education custom dictates for them is one that leaves un¬ 
cultivated many of the higher faculties ; and that the prejudice 
against blue-stockings, hitherto so prevalent amongst men, has 
greatly tended to deter women from the pursuit of literary 

honors : adding these considerations to the above facts, we shall 

31* 


490 


THE WATS OF WOMEN. 


see good reason for thinking that the alleged inferiority of the 
feminine mind is by no means self-evident. Their composi¬ 
tions are mostly based on the existing fund of thought, and 
their creations do not deviate widely from existing types; but 
in point of execution, in the treatment of details, and in per¬ 
fection of style, their works are quite on a par with those of 
theii' male rivals. 

They are deprived of all the advantages, and most of the 
motives, which men possess for acquiring even a decent amount 
of systematic education; and if we turn from philosophy and 
science to literature, in the narrow sense of the term, there are 
other obvious reasons why women’s productions are, in general 
conception and in their leading features, more or less imitations 
of those of men.” 

Finally, the signs of the times plainly indicate the success 
of importunate petitioners and aspirants for equal rights. 
Pioneers and public agitators in the cause of woman’s emanci¬ 
pation are indomitable and irrepressible. Concessions are 
slowly made of unimportant places to their management, which 
have been singularly well sustained, to the mortification of 
those who ai e fighting windmills. More they will have. 

What! if a few women should be sent to the legislature, or 
to Congress, they would have too much self-respect to have 
anything to do with any rings but diamond rings, nor would 
they disgrace themselves by entering into combinations to 
defraud the Governmenty foist their imbecile relatives into 
office, or vote to raise their own pay at the expense of the 
people already overburdened by excessive taxation. 

When women vote, respectable men will be elected over 
rascals, swindlers, defaulters, and demoralized politicians who 
are a curse to the country. 


INDEX 


PAGE 


Aboriiiinal habits. 197 

Abdominal support. 231 

Abdominal muscles.... 56 

Acid, malic. 170 

Acid, carbonic. 203 

Actors. 252 

Adaptation, laws of. 142 

Adam’s ribs. 17 

Adam’s apple. 21 

Advice unheeded. 60 

Advertised preparations, 

avoid '.. 365 

Adam’s apple. 463 

Affections of women..... 425 
Aged women sleeping... 140 

Air cells, ruptured. 199 

Air cells . 58 

Air, designed for breath- . 

ing. 76 

Alligators. 133 

Allopathies. 213 

Always taking medicine. 95 

Allen, Dr . 260 

Alternations of labor.... 349 

Amalgamation. 46 

Amnsements of females. 100 

American dentists. 118 

Anomalies. 159 

Animal food .176 

Anger, dangerous. 188 

Animation, suspended... 204 

Anaks..*. 23 

Antiquity of money. 30 

Anomalies. 43 

Antagonistic muscles.... 71 

Antique foot. 294 

Annoyances of women.. 302 

Apiarians . 150 

Apples as food. 169 

Aipparatus of organic life 20 
Appendages, supernu¬ 
merary _;.. 36 

Apple vinegar. 117 

Apartments, separate.... 138 

Arteries . 187 

Arching of female cra¬ 
nium . 14 

Arctic circle. 300 

Articulating heads of 

bones . 16 

Artificial contrivances... 42 

Arms without hands. 44 

Arrest of growth. 48 

Arrest of consumption.. 86 
Artists, undeveloped.... 106 

Areolar discs. 307 

Assimilation, law of.122 

Asthmatics. 152 

Associaies of children... 105 

Asylums, lunatic. 3.50 

Authors, opinions of. 195 

Avoiding—what?. 207 

Axis of vision. 248 


PAGE 


Baldness.;. 43 

Baker, Mrs. 93 

Battles of animals. 101 

Bald women. 273 

Bath, cold.338 

Bandaging infants.182 

Beauty of woman. 22 

Beard, for what purpose. 32 

Bearded woman.. 83 

Before marriage. 70 

Betel chewing. 262 

Being matched. 449 

Bears, Polar. 103 

Beds, best kind.148 

Bees, sense of smell.150 

Benevolent Frenchman.. 172 

Beats of the heart. 188 

Bickerings .451 

Birds, not social. 102 

Birds, flight of. 128 

Bile. 220 

Blood, how made. 75 

Blooming cheeks. 81 

Blemishes, cutaneous.... 355 

Bladder. 131 

Blue eyes. 251 

Bones, number of. 12 

Bones, extra, where found 12 

Bones, formation of. 14 

Bones, often renewed.... 15 

Born to misfortune. 29 

Boy’s voice. 35 

Boneless arm. 48 

Born to command.. 90 

Boys in childhood. 92 

Bonnets.271 

Boys and girls. 318 

Body often renewed.122 

Body, temperature of.... 144 
Brown, Charles—Strange 48 

Broken-hearted. 79 

•Broomsticks. 81 

Brain, to be exercised.... 84 

Bridle of lymph. 323 

Brain force. 342 

Brain, augmentation of,. 103 

Bread. 120 

Bread, universal. 159 

Breast-bone. 179 

Breathing..203 

Brothers and sisters.235 

Broken bones. 236 

Bulbs of the hair. 43 

Burdens, bearing. 72 

Bunions... 286 

Buffaloes, blind. 101 

Butter, its value.... 124. 

•Care of children. 24 

Caution . 98 

Carnivorous animals. 126 

Cats . 146 

Cartilage, zyphoid. 179 


PAGE 


Carbonic acid.203 

Cave, Mammoth.205 

Callosities of camels.2f»4 

Centers, nervous. 97 

Cereal grains. 119 

Cells, pulmonary. 178 

Charms of woman . 18 

Children, desire to see 

things. 19 

Chance, no such. 20 

Chest, flat. 42 

Chambermaids. 56 

Chinese belle. 57 

Cheeks, blooming. 81 

Child-bearing. 85 

Children, relations of.... 98 

Children, overtaxed.Ill 

Children, precocious. Ill 

Character.». 122 

Charcoal eating. 144 

Children, happiness in... 422 

Chewing ... 215 

Chyle.*.221 

Chilblains. 286 

Childhood. 315 

Chambermaids. 328 

Children’s society.453 

Chemistry, vital.: 164 

Chilblains, how produced 291 

Chilblains, remedy. 291 

Civilization, origin of..., 27 

City-born women. 80 

Cider vinegar. 117 

Cities, how recruited. 128 

Civilization, brings sugar 160 

Circulation of blood.187 

Cider. 169 

Clothing, should be loose 

for children. 50 

Closely pinned dresses... 64 
Clergy,* some opposed... 108 

Clothing of women. 144 

Clerkships for women... 334 

Cordage of the feet. 13 

Conquerors, how. 18 

Constitution, moral. 22 

Compensation, law of.... 29 

Consultation. 57 

Compression, thoracic... 58 

Consumption . 59 

Cold, susceptibility to... 69 
Compensation, law of.... 90 
Conscience, appeals to... 109 

Cold food. 121 

Cooking meats. 123 

Contingencies.127 

Constitutional stamina... 136 

Cooking.163 

Comfort, domestic. 196 

Contra ted chests.203 

Composition of teeth.... 266 

Comhirt, too much.319 

Cooper, Peter. 353 


















































































































































492 


INDEX, 


PAGE 


Complexion.354 

Cosmetics. 355 

Comp«‘iisation.3T7 

Consuls. 387 

Congeniality.452 

Commercial relations_453 

Companionship of ani¬ 
mals .454 

Cotton beds. 153 

Corsets. 179 

Coughing. 20b 

Cod-liver oil. 208 

Corns. 286 

Corns. 289 

Corn-martyrs. 290 

Corn doctors. 290 

Compression of feet. 292 

Collarbone. 20 

Concentrated food. 120 

Crimes by women. 51 

Cravats. 53 

Craving, morbid. 143 

Crude fruits. 169 

Cracking nuts vvith the 

teeth .. 256 

Cribs for infants. 142 

Curiosities of anatomy... 24 

Cushions in schools. 39 

Culture of young ladies.. 106 

Cutaneous nerves. 305 

Cud. 219 

Cumings,remarkable case 219 

Curry.227 

Cyon, Di\, his discovery. 180 

Daughters. 58 

Dancing. 72 

David danced. 107 

Dark experiment. 143 

Dainty morsel. 156 

Dandnxff. 163 

Dangers of marriage.431 

Desiunatioii of female 

skeleton. 16 

Design, evidences of. 17 

Development of body, 

sudden. 22 

Depilatories. 34 

Development, imperfect. 41 

Debility, nervous. 41 

Deviations, abnormal.... 45 

Deformed ladies. 57 

Delicacy, extreme. 10 

Defective education. 95 

Dentists. 116 

Death penalties. 132 

Decomposition in life.... 150 
Deiangenients, functional 223 

Dentifrices .258 

Dentists .2.59 

Desquamation. 272 

Decay. 434 

Deterioration, physical... 439 
Distinction of women..., 18 

Dissecting-room. 20 

Displaced organs. 66 

Distortions..'. 67 

Digestion. 73 

Disgust of life. 78 

Disagreements, matri¬ 
monial. 96 

Distances, knowledge of. 104 
Diathesis. 116 


PAGE 

Diet. 119 

Distention, stiinnlns of.. 126 

Discrepancy in age. 140 

Discolorations of skin ... 163 
Disappointments, effects 

of. 192 

Diagnosis. 223 

Distinguished, who are.. 341 

Dining hour. 172 

Digestion . 212 

Discipline.337 

Divers, pearl. 338 

Distinction without dif¬ 
ference . .346 

Divorce.. 420 

Dollars, to stand on. 28 

Dorsal muscles. 77 

Domain of sympathy. 86 

Domesticated animals... 102 

Dolls, value of. 104 

Dog. fed on a Bible cover 127 

Dogs, sleeping with. 145 

Dosing. 147 

Doctoring one’s self. 201 

Double heart.222 

Dosing, too much.. 328 

DressOf little girls. 49 

Dress of women.. 54 

Drugs, when injurious... 63 

Dried up fountain. 85 

Dragooning children. 112 

Drinks, abstaining from. 131 

Dreams. 136 

Drugging, cliildren. 148 

Drummond light. 253 

Drawing-room. 319 

Dropsy. 359 

Duties, moral. 112 

Du Chaillu. 208 

Duties, professional.404 

Duct, thoracic. 75 

Duck, experiment. 166 

Duplication. 345 

Dwarfs, marriage of. 23 

Dyspepsia, who exempt. 76 
Dyspepsia not cured.168 

Eating coal. 144 

Eat, or to be eaten. 215 

Ear, education of . 383 

Ecclesiastical cannonad¬ 
ing . 108 

Ecclesiastical laws. 417 

Economy in beds. 154 

Eccentricities. 442 

Education, what it does.. 91 

Education, power of. 332 

Effete matter. 76 

Effort a pleasure. 82 

Egyptian girls. 77 

Eggs, hard and soft. 123 

Eggs of tapeworm. 163 

Eggs. 233 

Elevation, social. 69 

Elegant forms. 81 

Electrical condition. 142 

Elastics. 304 

Elasticity, bed materials. 153 

Emaciation. 62 

Employment, necessary.. 78 

Emotions, sudden.184 

Emigrant ships. 404 

Eunuch’s voice. 36 


PAGE 


Energy of women. 79 

Enemies of sugar. KX) 

Enlarged heart. 184. 

Engine, forcing. 189 

Enamel, how destroyed,. 2.56 

Epidemics. 305 

Equality, social. 28 

Equal in age.142 

Equator.299 

Equalization, law of. 370 

Equality of sexes. 484 

Erysipelas of the feet_291 

Evolution of intellect.... Ill 
Evanescence of theories. 214 

Evolution. 432 

Experiment, King of 

Prussia. 22 

Exterior of the sexes.... 32 

Exercise of women. 69 

Expired air. 137 

Exercise..-._171 

Excitability. 190 

Expectoration. 199 

Explosion of life. 352 

Excess of females.369 

Excess of females. 428 

Eyes. 240 

Fainting. 89 

Facilities for children.... 104 

Fat, horror of. 115 

Family failures.327 

Factory children.3.38 

Faculty of mind. 3.52 

Female skeleton. 15 

Female skeleton, how to 

know one. 15 

Feet, damp. 69 

Female, despondent. 78 

Female operatives. 143 

Feathers. 151 

Female reptiles, large.,.. 2:}2 

Fecundity of fishes. 233 

Feet. 284 

Feet, small. 284 

Feet, laws of proportion. 285 
Female, med. examiners. 297 
Feastings on human flesh 299 

Female practitioners. 329 

Female education. 366 

Females, excess of,. 369 

Female physicians. 4C'6 

Fingers and toes extra... 44 

Figures, elegant. 81 

Fishes, their pursuits_102 

Fish, for food. 121 

Fisherman, hardy and . 

brave. 122 

Fish, as food. 175 

Flour, unbolted. 120 

Flannel. 180 

Florida, for consumptives 206 
Flour, composition of.... 267 

Formation of bones. 14 

Forms, preserved. 46 

Food. 73 

Food, plain, value of..... 81 

Food. 114 

Foot exercise. 131 

Food, for women. 156 

Force, vital, diminished.. 297 

Foreign languages. 386 

Frame of females. 12 










































































































































































INDEX, 


493 


PAGK 


Freaks of nature. 3? 

Fruits, wild. 121 

Fruits. 169 

Fruit raisers. 174 

Freedom, muscular. 181 

Freckles. 304 


Function of motherhood. 34 
Future of women.473 

Gas-light . 253 

Garters. 304 

Garments, starched. 52 

Gastric derangements.... 53 

Gas-light. 79 

Ganglions. 90 

Gastritis.. . 124 

Gastric juice, its proper¬ 
ties. 219 

Gall. 220 

Gentility, progress of_244 

Genius.. 342 

German language. 388 

Gelatine. 159 

Girls, dress of. 49 

Gilded furniture. 254 

Girls, in childhood. 91 

Glasses, unnecessary.243 

Glands quickened into 

activity. 85 

Glands, mesenteric. 220 

Gold filling... 256 

Gourmands. 157 

Gray hair. 277 

Graceful step. 293 

Gross food. 307 

Great families, poor. 28 

Grievances, special. 52 

Great men. 60 

Growing. 73 

Grass eating animals. 100 

Graham, a reformer. 157 

Grass-eating animals. 158 

Granulations in the lids.. 242 

Gunshot wounds .322 

Gymnastic exercises.... 204 

Hardships. 814 

Hammer arm.339 

Havana, strange sights... 339 

Hams, smoked. 163 

Habits, aboriginal.197 

Hair, swallowed.218 

Hair of the head . 269 

Hair, how injured.270 

Hair, the extraordinary 

growth. 271 

Hair, premature loss of .. 276 

Hair dyes. 278 

Hats . 272 

Habits, perverse. 81 

Habit, force of— . .123 

Happiness, foundation of 129 

Hair, for beds. 1.52 

Heart, overworking. 184 

Heart, double. 189 

Hereditary consumption. 194 

Hemorrhaires. 205 

Hepatic difficulties. 2.30 

Height of sexes. 234 

Heels, high. 292 

Height of women. 23 

Heads, two with one body 37 


PAGE 


Heels, high. 53 

Health, security of. 67 

Heads. 89 

Health of laborers.126 

Heart, beats untiringly.. 135 

Hips, w'ide spread. 25 

History of the world is... 27 

Hilarity to be encouraged 110 

Horses caught. 159 

Homoeopathies. 214 

Horse, without a gall blad¬ 
der... 226 

Hot food injures teeth... 25-5 
Hose, how to keep up.... 304 

Hope of a nation. 79 

Hot food. 120 

Hollow bones of birds... 128 

Home influences.143 

Hotel beds. 153 

Husbands, bad.414 

Humidity.. 207 

Husbands for short wom¬ 
en . 23 

Hunger. 157 

Hygeia. 171 

Hypertrophy.230 

Hypocrites, devout. 28 

Hygienic light. 60 

Hybernation. 133 

Idle females. 29 

Idleness elegant. 69 

Ignorance of themselves 79 

Impostors, medical.201 

Impositions, practiced... 330 

Impostors, medical. 408 

Imbibition of oxygen... 75 
Immortal, something..., 1.35 
Improvements suggested 4S2 

Indian doctors. 202 

Inflation, artificial. 203 

Inflammation, continued 205 

Inhaling .207 

Indigestible articles.217 

Intricate mechanism. 225 

Inflamed eyes.211 

Incurvated nails.2.‘^6 

Indian meal. 308 

Infancy, by poets. 312 

Infelicities, incidental... 324 

Instruction, practical-.3H8 

Industry, avenues to.,.. 401 

Indians. 440 

Inherited maladies. 442 

Insanity, tendency to.... 446 
Intelligence, supreme... 18 

Industry. 26 

Inconsistency. 28 

Invention of money. 30 

Ingenious stibstitutes.... 42 

Injuries of the chest. 54 

Interest, maternal. 58 

Inflation of air-cells. 58 

Intermarrying. 61 

Interviewing, stays. 63 

Intestinal tube, length... 74 

Instinct of woman. 83 

Indulgent husbands. 95 

Interdicting amusements lOO 

Infants, plump, why.125 

Insects, sleep. 134 

Inhalations of bad air.... 137 
Intemperance.447 


PAGE 

Incompatibility.... ..450 

Infirmities.451 

Indiscreet marriages .... 456 

Irritability. 176 

Irritability of the heart.. 186 
Irritants, microscopic... 198 

Isms.349 

Italian, nursed a child...- 86 

Jenkins, aged 160.190 

Jews. 317 

Jurisprudence, medical,. 51 

Juice, gastric. 159 

Jury, female.336 

Kneepan, a movable ful¬ 
crum . 12 

Knowledge, advanced... 93 
Kidneys, special office... 131 
Kiplinger, remarkable,.. 234 

Levity, reprehended.llQ 

Lesions of the heart. ... 184 

Lead pipe. 281 

Lead water.308 

Legislation for. 373 

Limitation, laws of. 22 

Limbs, born w’iihout. 45 

Life, a boon. 63 

Living made of. 114 

Lime. 118 

Liver, a sugar mill. 125 

Life, length of.214 

Liver, gigantic in evil... 224 

Life insurance. 2:35 

Lisping, genteel. 245 

Life, how it begins.313 

Lining membrane.321 

Life, expectation.424 

Loose clothing for chil¬ 
dren. 50 

Locomotive cordage. 71 

Longevity, how promoted 107 

Looking^well. 35-5 

Longevity of w’omen.457 

Luxury, technical. 70 

Lungs, diseased. 73 

Lumps, must expand.... 178 

Lunatic asylums.351 

Lungs of women. 194 

Lymphatic temperament. 78 

Laws to meet cases. 13 

Laws established in na¬ 
ture . 20 

Larynx. 22 

Lady, no mark of. 26 

Labor, not to be above... 29 

Lacing, tight. 56 

Lacteal vessels. 74 

Laughing. 93 

Latitude.211 

Lacteals.. 220 

Law of equalization.370 

Languages. 381 

Languages,more than one 384 

Languages, living.385 

Langtiage of animals.... 390 

Matrimony.416 

Mahometans, insane.351 

Marriages. 412 

Maceration, not digestion 126 
Marrying, aged persons.. 140 




























































































































































494 


INDEX, 


pagtc 


Mattreppes of hair. I5i 

Malarioup iiitiiieiicep.227 

Aialiuliep, many.3i4 

Alagiiepia, ui bonep. 15 

Mafep of birds, beautiful. 32 
Mammal development... 42 
Man not inlluenced by 

planets. 83 

Man and woman defei^ned 

to go logether. 96 

jSIaiden ladies. 99 

Measly pork. 166 

Meat, loo much. 17.5 

Medical students.3ii9 

Mercury. 229 

'Medical colleges. 405 

Memory. 380 

Mental activity. 410 

Metallic beds. 154 

Mechanism of stomach... 214 
Medical examiners, fe¬ 
male .. 297 

Meal, Indian.308 

Mechanical inventor?_342 

Means to ends, example 

of. 25 

Members, excess of. 36 

Mental feetileness. 51 

Medical jurisprudence... 51 

Minnesota, pure air.205 

Mixed food. 301 

Ministers, foreign. 388' 

Mind, to have relaxation. 110 

Milk, diluted. 147 

Microscopic irritants.... 198 
Misplaced men and wom¬ 
en.334 

Mission of women. 18 

Might and right. 30 

Mission, mistaken. 42 

Milk, drawing artificially 52 

Mineral water... 79 

Mosaic dispensation. 162 

Mongolians. 175 

Monkies.301 

Mon kies. 394 

Moral reflections.421 

Moral sentiment. 108 

Modes of living. 121 

Mountaineers. 122 

Morbid cravings. 143 

Modifying chest. 178 

Moderation enjoined. 181 

Moth spots. 306 

Moral influences. 330 

Mother's love. 27 

Monster twins. 37 

Monsters without prog¬ 
eny. 45 

Modification of form.... 48 

Morbid desires. 80 

Mucous passages. 209 

Mutilations, possible.... .303 

Muscles, must rest. 1.35 

Music, influence of. 108 

Muscles, organs of mo¬ 
tion . 14 

Mules. 436 

Mules, without olTspring. 46 
Mystery, to be cleared 
away. 29 

Nails, incurvated.286 


PAGE 


Nature, freaks of. 37 

National calamity, poor 

teeth. 117 

Nauseous drugs. 148 

Nationalities in regard to 

teeth. 260 

Neglected girders. 304 

Needle, a tool. 367 

New England population. 371 

Negro. 435 

Nellis, Mr., extraordinary 45 

Nellis, Mr. 47 

Neglect, followed by de¬ 
cay . 82 

Nervous system of women 83 

Nervous minuteness. 85 

Neuralgia . 95 

Nervous centers. 97 

Neuralgic pains.1.32 

Neck, long... .2.38 

Nearsighted.245 

Nitrate of silver, practice. 329 
Nipples, undeveloped.... 62 

Nostrum venders.806 

Nope, red..;.308 

Nothing by chance. 20 

Not curable. 62 

Nonentities... 81 

Nutrition of muscles. 71 

Nutrition, general. 73 

Nursed by aged women.. 8.5 
Nursing, infants. 182 

Oars recommended. 73 

Objects, new. . 130 

Oculists. 240 

Officials, foreign. 387 

Offensive exhalations.... 149 

Oil, cod-liver. 208 

Oleaginous compounds.. 360 
Old and young, to be 

separate. 139 

Omnivorous. 161 

Opinionated opponents.. 363 

Opera. 129 

Operatives, female. 143 

Organisation of w'omen.. 311 
Orthopaedic surgeons... 340 

Organs, passive. 347 

Orderly, wmmcn. 371 

Organs, essential to nu¬ 
trition alike in both 

sexes. 12 

Organs, displaced. 56 

Oriental females. 65 

Organic sympathy. ^ 

Organic life. 

Organic functions. 138 

Orators in spectacles. 246 

Ossific deposits, where 

and wlien. 13 

Out of place. 379 

Out of place. 27 

Out-door exercise. 76 

Over-worked brain. 348 

Ovarian tumors. 321 

Over-educated. 91 

Over-dosing children_ 147 

Oxygenation. 221 

O.xygenation of blood.... 62 

Passive organs..;. 341 

Pagan countries. 379 


PAGE 


Parrots. 383 

Palpitations.186 

Paints. 356 

Paps, rudimentary. 17 

Palsied limb. 60 

Pairing birds. 103 

Particles, vitalized. 123 

Parasites, how destroj'ed 124 
Painful intelligence, ef¬ 
fects of. 1S5 

Paracelsus. 167 

Peritonitis. 321 

Peabody, George. 353 

Perseverance. 397 

Perfection, manly. 4^39 

Pennies, swallowing. 218 

Pedestrians. 293 

Peculiar organization.... 311 

Pearl powder. 356 

Pelvic construction. 38 

Peasants, female, of Eu¬ 
rope . 77 

Periodical changes. 83 

Petulant wmmen__ 95 

Pet dogs. 145 

Perspiration, insensible.. 149 

Pharmacy. 208 

Physiologists. 225 

Physical necessities of 

women. 296 

Phosphate of lime in 

bones. 15 

Physical defects. 45 

Phases, social. 78 

Phonography.380 

Pharisaical hypocrisy'. .. 107 

Phosphate of lime. 119 

Physical deterioration.,.. 128 

Pictures. 368 

Pickles, abuse of. 115 

Pillows. 152 

Pimples. 16.3 

Piano drudgery. 112 

Pleurisy. 323 

Playing ball. 67 

Pleasure of effort. 82 

Pleurisy..... 209 

Portraits, in spectacles.. 245 

Political status. 475 

Pork. 161 

Potatoes. 166 

Poultice.309 

Poor girl8. 327 

Political rebus's.351 

Poverty cannot compete. Ill 

Practical instruction. 368 

Professions. 402 

Professional duties. 404 

Probabilities of life. . .. 427 
Progress of consumption 444 

Preparation of food. 215 

Pressure of shoes.287 

Precautions, sanitary ... 298 

Pride.302 

Prejudice against women 334 
Predisposition to mala¬ 
dies. 62 

Proofs, by analogy. 65 

Protrusions, hernial. 66 

Pride of wealth. 79 

Primary education of girls 91 
Propensities of youth.... 101 
Precocious children. Ill 




























































































































































Promenades,value of.... 129 
Precautions about sleep.. 140 

Puberty. 404 

Public»pinioii.411 

Puppies as pets. 14fi 

Putridity.. 157 

Puncture of chest. 322 

Puberty, cliange of voice. 34 

Public teachers. 76 

Purity of conduct. 82 

Punishments in China... 135 

Pul)lic consequences. 144 

Purifying the blood. 161 

Pulmonary consumption, 

origin of. 199 

Purblind, fashionable.... 245 

Question in life insur¬ 
ance. 38 

Quacks. 151 

Quack dentists. 259 

Rage. 61 

Raw food. 124 

Reflections, philosophical 19 

Relations, marrying. 61 

Remedy for distortions.. 77 

Reason.. 89 

Responsibility.,. 91 

Restraint, too much. 91 

Relations of children. 98 

Reptiles, solitary. 102 

Religious intolerance.... 108 
Recreations, more need¬ 
ed..... no 

Renal complaints. 131 

Reptiles’sleep...;. 133 

Rest, none lor certain or¬ 
gans . 1.35 

Rest, value of. 185 

Reticence of women.19.3 

Resuscitation.203 

Reflected light.2.53 

Red nose. 308 

Residence, change of._318 

Removing blemishes. 361 

Rights, hereditary, of 

women. 18 

Right and might. 30 

Ribs, true . 35 

Ribs, of serpents. 36 

Ribs, number in men and 

women. 36 

Rib, first. 59 

Rise of lungs.59 

Riding, horseback...... 72 

Ridicule. 105 

Risk in matrimony.141 

Risk in marriage. 445 

Rowing, by ladies. 72 

Rouging. 356 

Room, dissecting. 20 

Russian criminals. 1.36 

Rupture of heart. 192 

Rush, Dr. 196 

Sailors. 156 

Savages make toys. 104 

Salt. 158 

Savages, women with ... 27 

Schoolrooms. 198 

Scruples against art. 362 

Scrofula. 162 


INDEX. • 

PAGE 


Scrofulous habit. 67 

Season for certain foods 172 
Selections in marriage... 443 

Sentiment, moral. 108 

Sedentary employments.. 130 

Separate apartments. 138 

Sexes, electrical condi¬ 
tion. 143 

Sectarian reformers. 362 

Sexes. 18 

Sentimental young ladies 78 

Reclusion of women. 91 

Shrimps.157 

Shawl. 171 

Shoes. 210 

Short women. 2.37 

Shakers. 162 

Shoulder-blades. 21 

Short women. 23 

Sharp featured. 41 

Single ladies.424 

Side-saddle. 73 

Sick women. 80 

Skin, pale. 178 

Skin, structure of.358 

Skin, discolorations of... 163 
Skull, smaller in women.. 13 
Skeleton, outside, mus¬ 
cles inside. 14 

Skirls. 65 

Slow and sure. Ill 

Sleep of children. 113 

Sleep, how to. 183 

Sleep of animals. 133 

Sleeping together_ ... 1.37 

Sleeping with animals... 144 

Sleeping alone. 148 

Sleep from fatigue. 79 

Smoking husband. 137 

Smell, sense of. 194 

Small waists. 55 

Small heads. 89 

Soup of swallows’ nests . 156 

Soul recalled. 204 

Somnambulism. 1.34 

Soul reposes. 135 

Soul. 344 

Sound mind. 350 

Social status of. 26 

Social elevation. 69 

Sound constitution.80 

Sponge. 153 

Sporadic consumption... 210 
Sports of young animals. 100 
Specific purpose, recog¬ 
nized . 17 

Species, origin of. 46 

Spinal distortions, who 

exempt. 77 

Stewed puppy. 156 

Stench . 159 

Stables, sleeping in. 205 

Stitch in the side. 209 

Stereotyped doctrines.... 213 

Stone cutter.339 

Strength developed. 340 

Street children. 99 

Starvation of birds. 127 

Street-walking. 1.30 

Stamina, constitutional.. 186 
Structure, internal, of 

women. 176 

Steam, for freckles. 326 


495 

PAGE 


Stays. 55 

Stomach, a receiving sac. 74 

Sugar, dispensable. 160 

Sudorific lubes. 360 

Success, example of.349 

Sunday-school exercises. 112 
Sulphuric acid vinegar... 119 

Sugar, its value. 124 

Sugar, in fruits. 165 

Suffrage, female.335 

Swine. 161 

Swathing. 180 

Swollen feet. 287 

Swindle, novel. 43 

Sympathy, domain of.... 88 


Tall and short.233 

Tampering with health .. 360 
Tall men prefer short 

wives. 23 

Tape-worm. 124 

Temperature of body. 144 

Temperature in churches. 144 

Teeth, their growth. 232 

Teeth of women. 255 

Temperance. 324 

Teachers, medical. 408 

Temperament, lymphatic 78 

Teeth, sound. 117 

Teeth, where found. 117 

Theories, not facts. 212 

Thinkers. 347 

Throwing, awkward art, 

by women. 21 

Thoracic compression.... 58 

Thoracic ducts. 74 

Theaters.109 

Tight dressing. 52 

Tonics. 151 

Tortoises,^vision of. 247 

Tobacco. 255 

Toes, distorted. 286 

Topical applications. 307 

Toes and fingers extra.... 4.3 

Toilette, elaborate. 69 

Tonicity of muscles. 71 

Toil, compensation for... 76 

Toys. 103 

Tools for children. 104 

Transference of vitality.. 138 

Tragic face. 252 

Transplanting men. 317 

Traveling for health. 319 

Transmissible disease.... 441 
Transmission of defects.. 61 

Trowsers. 65 

Turkish ladie.s. 66 

Two to make one. 12 

Twins, one undeveloped. 37 

Twins, Siamese. 37 

Type, preserved. 46 


Ulcerations from tight 

shoes. 288 

Ulceration of lungs. 320 

Uninvited, who. 2S 

Dnlady-like. 81 

Underrated. 91 

Unsound women. 95 

Uncooked meats. 123 

Unripe fruit. 173 






























































































































































496 


•INDEX, 


PAGE 

Use of parts, increases 


size and strength. 13 

Useless medication. 43 

Vascularity of hair bulbs 277 

Vapor, hot.. . 307 

Varying amusements. 112 

Valves, ossification of.... 192 

Vermont farmer. 392 

Vegetable food. 122 

Vegetables. 159 

Vegetarians... 166 

Ventricles of the heart... 187 

Ventilation. 197 

Vision, duration of..251 

Vital force, diminishes... 13 
Vital force, diminishes... 50 
Vital force, no cessation 

of.14 

Violations of natural laws 45 

Vinegar. 115 

Vital chemistry. 122 

Vigilant sentinels. 131 

Vision in sleep. 134 

Vitality transferred. 138 

Viscus. 227 

Vision. 240 

Vision, in age. 250 


PAGE 


Vocal box. 21 

Voice of females.. 34 

Voice in young cocks.... 35 

Volition, suspended. 134 

Vomition. 217 

Vulgarity. 244 


Washes.305 

Water, a cosmetic.357 

Waists, small. 55 

Walking. 69 

Warm apartments. 79 

Watch-dog parents. 98 

Water, for camels. 127 

Wearing glasses. 240 

Wealth. 447 

Wedge bone. 25 

Weight in sitting. 38 

Wet-nurses. 52 

Weather, changes of. 62 

Weights on the head. 79 

Whiskey. 228 

Whites and blacks.4.38 

Whales. 455 

White Sulphur Springs .. 76 

Wigs, antiquity of. 275 

Wisdom teeth.315 


PAGE 


Widow’s son. 80 

Wile’s accomplishments. 93 

Wigs. 129 

Wool beds. 152 

.Women, what they can do 372 
Women, their influence.. 12 
Woman, what she has 

done. 18 

Women, their hereditary 

rights. 18 

Women with a beard. 34 

Women make themselves 

* sick. 65 

Women of energy. 79 

Women from the country. 80 
Womanhood, true ele¬ 
ments of. 79 

Women, physical deteri¬ 
oration of. 128 

Wrongs of women. 27 

Wyoming Territory.336 


Yarn, street . 130 

Yellow complexion. 230 

Yellowish skin. 307 

Young and old. 139 

Young mothers.306 


JUL 261949 




































































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